ApriT  s 

Sowing 


(\I5OWJG 


"  Y~ou'/I  love  me  yet  !   and    I  can 

tarry 

Your  loi<e"  s  protracted  growing, 
June  reared  the  bunch  of  flowers 

you  carry. 
From  seeds  of  April's  solving." 


NEW  YORK  ' 
>TCLURE  ^PHILLIPS 

10  O 


COPYRIGHT,  1900 
BY  McCtuRK,  PHILLIPS  &  Co. 


My  Mother 


2228373 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER  I  ....       3 

CHAPTER   II  .          .          .21 

CHAPTER  III  .          .          .          -59 

CHAPTER   IV  .          .         .     71 

CHAPTER  V  ....     82 

CHAPTER  VI  .         .         -93 

CHAPTER  VII  .          .          .          .112 

CHAPTER  VIII  .          .          .          -131 

CHAPTER  IX  ....   157 

CHAPTER  X  .          .          .          .186 

CHAPTER  XI  ....  231 

CHAPTER  XII  ....  253 


April's 

Sowing 


THERE  was  once  a  girl,  who,  in 
her  latter-day  fashion  answered  rather 
well  to  the  description  of  that  prin- 
cess in  old  tales  who  was  very  pretty,  and 
the  only  child  of  a  doting  potentate,  and  could 
have  whatever  she  would,  and  for  whose  hand 
vast  numbers  of  aspirants  contended.  Her 
name  was  Nelly  Brown,  and  she  lived  in  a 
great  white  pillared  and  porticoed  country 


April's  Sowing 

house,  with  the  blinds  painted  green,  that 
stood  in  the  midst  of  lawns  and  flower-beds 
on  a  little  hill. 

This  girl  one  afternoon  was  dressing  to  go 
to  a  party,  a  garden-party.  Her  bower  was 
scarcely  what  would  have  been  expected  from 
the  exterior  of  her  house,  which  was  old- 
fashioned  ;  everything  in  it  expressed  the  love 
of  prettiness  in  its  latest  kind ;  its  expensive- 
ness  must  have  come  near  making  the  judi- 
cious shiver.  The  gem  of  it,  set  in  the  most 
favorable  light,  was  a  table  like  a  bride,  in  a 
white  lace  petticoat  and  veil,  upbearing  a 
mirror  wreathed  with  loves  and  roses,  and  a 
quantity  of  glimmering  crystal  pots  and  bot- 
tles, and  a  confusion  of  ivory  and  gold  uten- 
sils. The  girl  sat  before  this  on  a  golden 
chair,  and  let  another  girl  in  a  white  cap  and 
apron  take  the  pins  out  of  her  hair. 

While  this  was  doing,  they  heard  a  stir 
below  the  window.  It  was  the  common 
noise  of  the  house-dog  barking,  and  the 
house-cat  spitting,  and  gravel  flying ;  but,  so 

4 


April's  Sowing 

idle  was  Nelly  Brown's  mood,  she  pulled 
her  head  away  from  the  maid,  and,  with  the 
curtain  held  before  her,  looked  out.  After  a 
moment  she  came  back  to  her  seat,  and  fixed 
upon  her  reflection  an  eye  that  continued  en- 
grossed with  something  it  had  seen  beside 
Tabby  and  Tray. 

An  amiable-looking  fat  little  woman  came 
into  the  room,  bonneted  and  gloved,  all  ready 
to  start  for  somewhere. 

"  Bless  the  child  !  "  she  exclaimed,  at  sight 
of  Nelly's  arms  and  neck,  still  bare. 

"  Yes,  Murrie  Jefferson  !  "  said  Nelly,  with 
an  unashamed  look  over  her  shoulder  at  the 
exclaimer,  "  I  have  been  dawdling.  But  I 
want  to  get  there  when  it  is  half  over.  There 
is  too  much  of  it,  afternoon  and  evening  as 
well.  We  shall  be  kept  till  ever  so  late, 
anyhow,  standing  into  the  bargain.  It's  al- 
ways so  at  those  open-air  affairs." 

Her  friend  stood  wearing  behind  Nelly's 
back  an  expression  of  discouragement  comic 
from  excess ;  but  after  a  moment,  like  a  per- 
5 


April's  Sowing 

son  used  to  the  sort  of  thing  she  is  en- 
countering, she  pushed  another  frail-looking 
gilt  chair  to  the  toilet,  and  with  a  face  as 
hardily  amiable  as  ever  settled  down  on  it,  to 
be  good  company  for  half  an  hour,  or  an 
hour,  or  six  hours. 

She  was  about  twice  and  a  half  Nelly's 
age,  with  a  cheerful,  mouse-like  prettiness, 
patches  of  ruddy  color  on  her  cheek-bones 
and  nose.  Her  dress  was  that  of  a  person 
who  knows  perfectly  what  should  be  worn, 
and  does  her  best  to  be  in  the  fashion  with 
remnants  of  fine  materials  lasting  over  from 
other  days. 

She  unstopped  one  of  Nelly's  bottles,  and 
giving  her  nostrils  turns  at  smelling,  ran  on 
like  a  leisurely  brook  which  purls  about  this 
and  that  thing  that  have  no  relation  with  one 
another. 

"  What  is  it  ?     Violet  ?     This  ?     I  didn't 

recognize   it.      It's    so    much    better.      Ah, 

French !     I   thought   so.     It   makes   all  the 

difference. — Did  you  know  there  was  to  be 

6 


April's  Sowing 

music  in  the  grounds  ?  What  lovely  grounds 
she  has !  A  string  orchestra,  all  the  way 
from  town.  It  must  be  just  about  beginning. 
— I  never  saw  anything  so  pretty  as  the  gold 
monograms  on  that  ivory  !  What  has  be- 
come of  your  old  silver  set  ? — Oh,  you  little 
bunch  of  extravagance  !  You  collect  toilet- 
sets  as  we  poor  things  might  postage-stamps. 
Leave  me  the  silver  one  in  your  will,  won't 
you  ? — I'm  afraid  she  will  be  disappointed  at 
your  coming  so  late,  dear.  You  are  one  of 
the  special  features  of  this  show  of  hers,  you 
know.  And  she  wanted  so  particularly  to 
have  you  and  her  nephew  meet. — Horace 
Cox,  yes.  The  one  who  has  the  fast  yacht. 
One  doesn't  have  to  be  very  deep  to  guess 
what  she  has  in  mind,  the  scheming  old  some- 
body.— No,  you're  right ;  one  couldn't  ex- 
actly call  her  schemer  for  anything  she  has 
done  in  this  matter  so  far,  but,  bless  your 
heart,  I've  known  her  ever  since  I  can  re- 
member. She's  a  match-maker  dyed  in  the 
wool.  It  comes  of  having  nothing  else  to  do, 
7 


April**  Sowing 

my  dear.  She  doesn't  care  for  cats  and  par- 
iocs.  Wefl,  he's  a  tremendous  swelL  It 
seems  a  sort  of  pity  you  should  miss  meeting 
hinu — Oh,  he  may  still  be  there,  of  course, 
when  we  arrive,  if  we  get  there  at  any  time 
before  the  end.  As  he  is  staying  at  her 
house,  he  probably  wflL  Promise  now  to  be 
nice  to  him,  won't  you  ?  if  only  to  dash  the 
hopes  of  that  miserable  young  Dempster,  who 
is  sure  to  be  hanging  about. — Oh,  nothing ! 
But  he's  not  half  good  enough  for  you. 
What  are  you  going  to  wear,  dear  ?  White  ? 
You  mean  the  same  as  last  Friday. — New  ? 
Another  new  one?  When  did  k  come? 
Where?  On  the  bed?" 

She  half  ran,  half  flew,  like  a  chased  ben, 
to  the  alcove,  and  on  the  highest  note  her 
voice  afforded,  cried,  «  Netty !  NcBy!  What 
a  love !  Now  you  bundle  yourself  into  that 
heavenly  thing,  Miss,  and  come  along  with 
me  to  the  party  before  that  young  yachts- 
man has  been  passed  round  till  there's  none 
left.  You  shall  hurry  this  once,  you  slow- 
t 


April's  Sowing 

est  little  coach  that  ever  crept.  There !  I 
hear  the  carriage  driving  round  to  the  door 
this  minute." 

"Murrie,"  said  Nelly,  serenely  leaning 
back  in  her  chair — she  was  killing  time  now 
with  the  little  pots  and  polisher — "you  take 
the  landau,  and  go  your  way  to  Miss  Cox's, 
and  bid  her  continue  to  hope  she  will  see 
me.  And  by  and  by,  when  you  have  forgot- 
ten this  conversation,  and  are  half  dead  with 
your  feet,  and  sick  of  circus  drinks,  you  will 
see  me  dawn  upon  you  in  the  victoria — Sam 
can  drive  me — all  fresh  and  uncrumpled  and 
in  a  sweet  temper,  just  in  time  to  seem  a  god- 
send to  the  poor  New  York  nephew.  Do 
go  ahead  for  me,  there's  a  good  Murrie. 
Why  don't  you,  on  your  way,  stop  for  the 
Ranneys,  so  as  to  have  company  ?  I  don't 
believe  they  will  have  started,  and  they  might 
be  glad  of  a  seat  in  the  carriage.  Here,  put 
on  this  pearl  thing,  it  looks  so  nice  in  the 
black  lace." 

When — after  a  little  wondering  aloud  had 
9 


April's  Sowing 

she  not  really  better,  for  Miss  Cox's  sake,  as 
well  as  the  Ranneys',  do  as  Nelly  suggested — 
the  good  Murrie  had  gone,  Nelly  put  more 
life  into  the  exercise  of  arraying  herself. 

It  was  not  much  later  when  she  rustled 
down  the  stairs.  Pulling  on  a  long  pale 
glove  she  wandered  about  the  ground  floor, 
looking  for  her  father  and  mother. 

She  found  them  in  the  homely  room  she 
had  let  them  keep  just  as  they  wanted  it. 

The  gray-headed  millionaire,  in  snowy 
shirt-sleeves,  sat  in  an  armchair  beside  the 
cold  stove.  He  dozed ;  his  face  in  sleep 
looked  simple  and  benevolent ;  his  skin  was 
brown  as  any  gardener's.  The  afternoon 
sun  flung  the  shape  of  a  window  in  rosy  gold 
aslant  the  table,  on  which  he  had  laid  down 
his  great  shears  and  a  bundle  of  newly-cut 
roses. 

His  wife  sat  on  the  other  side  of  the  stove, 
and  knit  busily  at  the  smallest  size  of  baby- 
socks.  No  little  child  of  her  ken  but  found 
the  world  it  entered  a  place  of  soft  white 


April's  Sowing 

socks  edged  with  tender  pink.  Her  face 
also  was  an  engaging  white  and  pink;  one 
felt  sure  she  must  take  innocent  pride  in  her 
good  color. 

Nelly  had  stopped  in  the  doorway.  Her 
mother  ceased  knitting  to  look  at  her. 

"  Well !  "  she  whispered  across  the  room, 
"  If  you  don't  look  pretty  as  a  picture  !  " 

Her  father  opened  his  eyes,  and  smiled  to 
her,  nodding.  "  Land  !  If  that  isn't  a  pretty 
dress  you've  got  on  !  " 

She  came  in  then,  and  settled  herself  deli- 
cately, like  a  stupendous  white  butterfly,  on 
the  arm  of  his  chair,  still  working  at  her 
glove. 

"  It  came  from  Paris  !  "  she  said. 

Two  pairs  of  eyes  looked  her  proudly  and 
affectionately  over.  These  modest  mates 
wondered  a  little  still  at  this  being  a  very 
child  of  theirs.  The  father,  indeed,  com- 
monly spoke  to  her  as  if  with  a  consciousness 
of  humor  in  their  relation.  His  kind  eyes 
finding  hers  sometimes  flashed  out  the  ex- 


April's  Sowing 

pression  of  a  wink,  as  if  there  had  been 
between  them  some  pleasant  understanding 
of  a  joke.  The  mother  could  not  altogether 
conceal  the  touching  fact  that  she  kept  up 
the  pretense  of  wielding  a  mother's  authority 
merely  because  it  is  happier  for  a  child  to 
have  the  sense  of  a  mother's  venerated  au- 
thority over  it.  God  knew  she  felt  humble 
enough  at  heart  toward  this  young  meeting- 
ground  of  every  grace  she  had  been  privileged 
to  bring  into  the  world.  In  every  other 
matter  this  good  Mr.  Brown  and  his  wife 
showed  excellent  sense. 

"  And  where  are  you  going,  Dolly  ?  "  her 
father  asked.  "  I  guess  Mrs.  Jefferson  men- 
tioned it  on  her  way  out,  but  I'm  forgetful  of 
it." 

"  Miss  Cox's,  Pa.  You're  invited  too,  of 
course,  you  know.  You're  always  invited 
everywhere  I  am.  Of  course." 

"Me?  Well,  I  thank  them  kindly.  I 
never  was  cut  out  for  parties,  Dolly.  I 
never  was  so  scared  in  all  my  born  days  as 


April's  Sowing 

the  time  your  mother  made  me  go  to  that — 
what  was  it,  Mother  ? — and  be  something 
with  a  tag  in  my  buttonhole,  and  take  strange 
ladies  one  after  another  to  shake  hands  with 
the  governor's  wife  and  party.  And  Mother's 
a  home  body  too." 

"  Oh,  I  like  to  go  a  sight  better  than  your 
father  does.  But  it  has  to  be  among  folks  I 
know.  I  get  plenty  of  society  just  here  in 
Cloverfield,  and  no  one  can  say  we  don't  do 
our  share  of  entertaining.  I  like  all  Posy's 
friends,  so  long  as  she's  around,  but  I  don't 
more  than  half  like  to  be  left  alone  with 
them,  at  least  not  all  of  them.  Then  I  seem 
to  find  our  notions  don't  fit,  or  else  I  don't 
quite  get  the  lay  of  theirs.  I  like  that  Mrs. 
Taylor  you're  going  to  visit  next  winter  in 
New  York,  Posy.  She  appears  like  a  good 
motherly  body.  And  her  girls  appear  like  good 
girls.  She's  got  a  grown  boy  too,  hasn't  she  ? " 

"  Yes,  Ma." 

u  Well,  you  won't  want  for  a  beau." 

"When  did  Dolly  ever  want  for  a  beau?" 
13 


April's  Sowing 

chuckled  her  father,  leaning  forward  in  his 
chair  to  get  more  than  a  side-view  of  his 
girl's  face.  "There's  Mrs.  Jefferson  gone 
along  now  to  engage  one  ahead  for  her  at 
Miss  Cox's.  She  as  good  as  said  she  was." 

"Posy  shall  have  just  who  she  wants," 
said  her  mother,  not  far  from  serious,  in  a 
little  definitive  way  she  often  assumed. 
"  Posy  will  choose  right,  I've  no  fear.  Posy's 
got  good  judgment.  And  with  all  the 
chances  she's  had  to  see  the  world  and  weigh 
one  thing  against  the  other,  she  ought  to  be 
bright.  She  shall  have  a  real  good  time  as 
long  as  she's  a  girl,  and  then  she'll  settle 
down  and  be  a  good  wife  to  somebody.  But 
I  can't  help  hoping  it'll  be  a  long  time  first." 

"  Oh,  it  will ! "  said  Nelly,  with  an  airy 
tilt  backwards  of  her  head;  and  she  raised 
her  eyebrows  as  far  as  they  would  go,  casting 
a  sidelong  glance  at  the  floor.  She  had  fin- 
ished buttoning  her  gloves ;  she  laid  her 
hands  on  her  knee,  and  sat  swinging  one 
white-shod  foot. 


April's  Sowing 

"If  you  behave  as  pretty  as  you  look, 
Dolly,"  said  her  father,  putting  up  a  fond 
hand  to  tuck  behind  her  ear  a  little  curl  she 
had  trained  to  stray  over  it,  "I'm  not  afraid 
there'll  ever  be  a  better  behaved  girl  in  this 
State." 

"You  are  dazzled  by  my  dress  this  after- 
noon, aren't  you,  Pa  ?  It's  a  good  thing,  for 
you  will  have  to  pay  such  a  lot  for  it !  You 
eould  get  a  cow  and  several  pigs,  Pa,  I  do 
believe,  for  what  you  will  have  to  pay  for 
this  chaste  simplicity." 

"Why,  it's  nothing  more  than  fine  cam- 
bric, is  it?" 

"That's  literally  all.  And  a  little  bit  of 
lace." 

"Well,  then — not  but  I'm  willing — what 
in  glory " 

"There!  Don't  you  try  to  explain,  Posy. 
Your  father  can't  understand  these  matters. 
I've  been  trying  to  make  him  ever  since  I 
left  off  wearing  calico  prints  I  made  up  myself, 
and  we  stand  just  where  we  did  at  the  start." 


April's  Sowing 

"He's  a  dear!"  said  Nelly,  putting  an  arm 
round  his  neck  and  pressing  his  tanned  cheek 
to  her  side. 

"Just  let  me  have  the  bill,  Dolly.  You 
know  your  pa,  don't  you  ? — Here,  don't  you 
want  a  bokay  to  pin  in  your  bosom  ? " 

"Oh,  no,  dear!"  she  said,  hurriedly; 
"there  is  no  place  for  it.  See?  It  would 
crush  it  badly.  No  one  wears  such  a  thing 
any  more." 

"  Well,  I'll  give  you  a  big  bunch  to  carry 
in  your  hand.  They're  real  pretty.  They're 
the  handsomest  roses  I've  raised  this  year. 
I've  christened  them  c  White  Ladies.' 
Wait,  I'm  going  to  trim  off  the  stems  for 
you." 

He  took  out  his  pocket-knife  and  was  re- 
moving every  thorn. 

"  Flowers  are  never  out  of  place,"  said  the 
mother  gently  to  Nelly,  in  deprecation  per- 
haps of  the  uneagerness  in  her  face.  "  It 
doesn't  matter  what  the  fashion  is,  the  Lord 
makes  flowers  a  sight  prettier  than  any  other 
16 


April's  Sowing 

ornament.      There,    those'll    do,    David,    or 
they'll  be  cumbersome  for  her." 

"  Wait  a  minute  ;  I'll  put  a  piece  of  news- 
paper round  the  stems,  so  you  needn't  be 
afraid  of  hurting  your  gloves." 

"  No,  no,  Pa,  dear ;  it  doesn't  matter.  Ah, 
well.  Thank  you,  dear,  ever  so  much.  They 
are  pretty.  4  White  Ladies,'  that's  exactly 
the  name  for  them.  Did  you  invent  them, 
Pa  ?  What  fun  to  invent  a  rose !  How 
sweet  they  are!" 

"  Now,  to  me  those  roses  smell  just  like 
the  common  sod  after  a  good  downpour. 
They  don't  smell  sweet  a  bit,"  said  Mrs. 
Brown. 

"  Well,  I  should  like  to  know  what  smells 
sweeter  than  nice  damp  earth,"  said  her  hus- 
band. "  Haven't  you  ever  noticed,  after  a 
shower,  every  one  coming  out  on  his  door- 
step to  sniff  the  air  ?  They're  a  sight  of 
care,  though,  Dolly.  I  get  just  as  tired 
sometimes  over  them  as  if  I'd  been  out 
mowing." 

17 


April's  Sowing 

"  Why  don't  you  let  some  one  else  do  the 
hard  part  of  the  work,  Pa,  and  you  be  satis- 
fied with  seeing  your  name  in  the  flower- 
show  catalogues  ? " 

"  I  like  it,  bless  your  heart !  I've  got  to 
be  of  some  use.  There  come  the  girls,  the 
three  of  them,  up  the  walk.  Going  now, 
Dolly?" 

"  Yes,  Pa.  The  horses  have  been  stand- 
ing ever  so  long.  If  I  stop  to  see  the  girls  I 
shall  be  terribly  late.  I  am  late  already." 

"  Mrs.  Jefferson  seemed  to  think  you  were 
late  an  hour  ago.  Be  you  always  late  to 
everything,  Posy  ?  Is  that  the  style  too  ? 
Well,  have  a  good  time,  ladybird,  and  re- 
member everything  to  tell  us  when  you  get 
home.  I  wonder  if  the  girls  want  anything 
in  particular,  or  are  they  just  coming  for  so- 
ciability's sake  ?  Christie  looks  to  me  as  if 
she'd  something  on  her  mind." 

The  girls,  who  presently  entered,  were 
three  middle-aged  relatives,  cousins  in  some 
distant  degree.  Mrs.  Brown  became  another 
18 


April's  Sowing 

person  at  their  approach.  She  leaned  further 
back  with  her  knitting ;  she  placed  her  feet 
on  a  stool,  and  was  a  pretty,  gray-haired, 
beneficent  autocrat  on  her  throne,  ready  to 
dispense  counsel  and  charity  and  criticism  to 
her  little  domain  of  Cloverfield. 

The  plain-featured  maidens,  worn-looking 
still  from  a  youth  of  hardships,  took  seats 
about  her,  like  humble  officers  of  the  court. 
Mr.  Brown  leaned  forward  to  listen,  ready 
with  a  not  unkindly  teasing  laugh  he  had  for 
these  occasions. 

"  Mrs.  Jones  is  very  poorly,  Aunt  Han- 
nah," said  Christie;  "those  drops  you  sent  her 
don't  seem  to  have  done  her  a  mite  of  good." 

"  Did  she  take  them  hot  ? "  asked  Mrs. 
Brown,  with  a  queenly  knitting  of  her  brows. 

"  I  don't  know.  But  the  distress,  she  says, 
is  just  as  bad  as  ever." 

"  Then    you    mark   my  word,   she   didn't 
take   them   hot.     Isn't  it  strange  you  can't 
depend  on  that  sort  of  woman  to  do  as  you 
tell  her  ?      How's  the  baby  ?  " 
19 


April's  Sowing 

Nelly  stood  aloof,  working  at  her  glove  as 
if  it  were  not  already  well  on.  She  always 
felt  an  outsider  at  these  scenes,  supplanted, 
but  not  in  a  way  she  deplored.  Mother  would 
not  have  wanted  her  to  be  as  Christie  and 
Abigail  and  Merinda  were,  or  to  do  their 
offices  for  her.  The  light,  bright  existence 
she  led — she  knew  it — was  her  parents'  one 
valued  luxury.  She  kissed  them  good-bye  as 
if  parting  from  them  for  a  long  time,  as  she 
always  did,  and  put  down  her  sweet-smelling 
face  for  a  half-second  to  each  of  the  cousins, 
in  whom  she  never  even  pretended  the  slight- 
est interest,  but  yet  whom  she  loved  a  little 
for  their  appreciation  of  her  mother. 

Coming  out  of  doors,  she  looked  toward 
the  carriage  in  waiting  under  a  side  porch. 
At  her  appearance  there  was  a  jingling  of 
bits. 

"  Wait !  "  she  called,  and  walked  off  in 
the  opposite  direction. 


SHE  left  the  driveway  and  thread- 
ed a  city  of  glass-houses,  at  this  sea- 
son half  open,  half  empty.  When  in  her  pro- 
gress she  had  left  the  gravel  and  come  to  a 
little  stretch  of  bare  earth,  she  looked  at  her 
shoes,  white  as  two  white  doves.  She  made 
a  sudden  gesture  of  not  caring,  and  hurried 
on.  She  took  the  unpicturesque  paper  from 
the  rose-stems  and  let  it  drop.  For  a  second 


April's  Sowing 

one  might  have  thought  she  would  treat  the 
roses  in  a  like  manner.  But  she  did  not. 

The  broad  path  ended  at  a  wicket.  The 
glance  she  dropped  on  her  shoes  was  a  little 
rueful.  She  looked  ahead  ;  the  footpath  led 
down  a  slope  clothed  in  rough  grass  and  gray 
moss. 

She  continued  lightly  along  the  mossy  edge 
of  the  path,  till  stopped  by  a  three-barred 
fence.  This  was  certainly  awkward.  She 
pictured  to  herself,  not  without  spite,  the 
freedom  with  which  the  last  person  probably 
passing  this  way  had  taken  the  fence  at  a 
single  stride. 

She  turned  to  go  back. 

Then  she  turned  again,  laid  down  her 
roses,  looked  in  every  direction,  placed  her 
foot  on  the  lowest  bar,  and  alone  in  the  sight 
of  heaven  came  over  the  fence  almost  as 
easily  as  a  young  man. 

She  brushed  down  her  ruffled  feathers,  and 
forsaking  the  poor  white  ladies  in  the  grass, 
went  on. 


April's  Sowing 

The  path  still  descended.  Now  through 
the  trees  she  could  see  water.  When  the 
path  became  level  the  character  of  the  ground 
changed. 

She  stopped  ;  the  space  still  to  traverse  was 
soggy  and  black.  A  few  gray  planks  had 
been  used  at  some  time  to  bridge  the  bad 
walking ;  but  they  were  not  laid  in  a  line 
now,  they  were  too  far  apart  to  make  effec- 
tual stepping-places. 

Nelly  felt  distinctly  cross.  It  seemed 
as  if  she  had  really  cared  about  the  stupid 
adventure. 

While  she  contemplated  the  forbidding 
soil  she  weighed  in  her  mind  as  in  a  balance 
two  visions :  one,  of  herself  at  Miss  Cox's, 
in  clean  shoes,  surrounded,  flattered,  flirting; 
the  other,  of  herself  in  the  same  surround- 
ings, flattered,  flirting — only,  with  a  necessity 
to  remember  her  feet,  and  not  let  them  be 
seen,  which  small  misery  should  have  been 
offset  by  the  consciousness  of  having  done  a 
good  deed,  in  letting  a  poor  boy  who  adored 
*f 


April's  Sowing 

her  get  a  glimpse  of  her  in  the  first  freshness 
of  her  Paris  pride.  But  it  was  a  trifle  after 
all ;  she  had  a  natural  loathing  to  soiling  her 
feet. 

"  Fate  did  not  mean  it  to  be  !  "  she  said. 

Then  she  gathered  up  her  skirts  very 
methodically ;  she  took  three  well-considered 
long  steps  toward  the  water.  She  stopped 
short  on  a  plank  and  wrinkled  her  forehead. 
"  He  w ill  think  I  wanted  to  see  him  !  "  she 
said  to  herself.  "  No  !  "  she  answered  her- 
self promptly,  "  he  is  not  that  kind  of  crea- 
ture !  "  and  went  freely  on. 

It  would  be  inaccurate  to  say  that  as  she 
did  so  she  reviewed  the  situation  between  her- 
self and  the  object  of  her  search;  it  was, 
however,  very  present  to  her  mind.  She  had 
a  theory,  wondering  and  amused,  concerning 
the  circumstance  that  for  several  months  he 
had  as  good  as  taken  up  living  quarters  in  her 
consciousness :  and  this  was,  that  it  was  his 
incessant  thinking  of  her  days,  and  dreaming 
of  her  nights,  that  forced  her  to  think  of  him. 
24 


April's  Sowing 

Others  in  his  case,  when  she  had  rejected 
their  proffered  hearts,  went  fading  their  sev- 
eral ways  out  of  her  life,  hurt  or  sorrowful, 
astonished  or  even  indignant  j  this  insignifi- 
cant suitor  persisted  in  never  letting  go  to 
sleep  in  her  for  a  moment  the  sense  of  his 
warm  wound.  The  manner  of  his  accom- 
plishing this  she  explained  by  a  theory,  close 
kin  to  the  other.  With  his  point  of  view 
ever  sympathetically  before  her,  she  must, 
while  he  drew  breath  in  the  neighborhood, 
feel  herself  fatal  and  adorable :  a  natural 
beholdenness  for  the  assurance  of  power  she 
derived  from  him,  an  appreciation  of  his  ap- 
preciation, it  must  have  been  that  seemed  to 
be  driving  her  always  to  flash  herself  before 
his  already  subjugated  eyes  like  a  gem  in  the 
light.  If,  revived  a  little  by  the  beams  she 
shed,  he  presumed  to  be  urgent,  she  crushed 
him  ;  if  he  dropped  off  from  his  tiresome  ap- 
pealing, the  obvious  conclusion  being  that  he 
must  be  languishing  in  mortal  depression  at 
the  vanity  of  all  hope  of  her,  common  hu- 


April1  s  Sowing 

manity  seemed  to  require  that  she  should 
rouse  and  cheer  him  once  more  with  a 
glimpse  of  herself  in  one  of  her  most  be- 
witching impersonations.  Thus  alternate 
vanity  and  pity,  at  the  same  time  as  entertain- 
ing in  a  bright  flicker  a  fire  condemned  to  ex- 
tinction, had  kept  her  effectually  tied  with  one 
to  whom  she  denied  even  the  shadow  of  a 
hope  of  a  tie.  She  might  well  have  had  a 
bad  conscience  in  this  matter.  As  a  fact,  she 
had  not.  First,  the  idea  of  anything  serious 
between  herself  and  a  youth  without  posses- 
sions, position,  or  prospects  in  any  degree 
brilliant,  was  on  the  face  of  it  absurd,  and 
this  she  knew  that  he  knew  as  well  as  she ; 
then,  he  himself  would  never  blame  her, 
whatever  she  did,  he  had  so  much  rather  she 
made  him  miserable  than  that  she  let  him 
alone ;  and  then,  no  one  else  knew  it. 

She  came  to  the  edge  of  the  pond,  an  in- 
extensive  sheet  of  water,  in  shape  no  nearer 
round  than  a  hand  is,  diked  in,  gurgling  off 
through  a  trap  into  a  meadow  where  it  wound 
26 


April 's  Sowing 

out  of  sight.  On  all  but  the  dike  side,  banks 
of  trees,  caught  here  and  there  in  a  tangle 
with  big-leaved  vines,  followed  the  shore. 
There  was  an  air  of  mystery  almost  about  the 
further  end  of  the  pond,  where  long  branches 
reached  over  the  water,  and  floating  green 
mats  interrupted  the  glossy  reflections  of  the 
sky ;  where  a  bluish  haze  filled  the  gaps  in 
the  tree-wall,  beyond  which  were  other  trees 
more  dimly  seen,  hemming  in,  one  imagined, 
wilder,  ranker  recesses. 

A  dory  lay  against  the  shore,  empty. 

Nelly  perceived  her  man  at  a  little  dis- 
tance under  a  knot  of  pine-trees,  on  a  hump 
that  looked  pleasantly  dry,  and  instead  of 
running  down  to  the  water,  turning  boggy 
and  reedy  as  it  went,  dropped  to  it  with  a 
steep  broken  effect.  She  looked  for  a  fish- 
ing-rod. One  might  be  near  him  on  the 
ground,  but  he  was  not  fishing.  He  lay  on 
his  back,  doing  nothing. 

She  crossed  the  dike  and  came  over  the 
rising  ground,  near  where  he  was.  Across 
27 


April's  Sowing 

the  water,  up  over  the  trees,  she  could  see 
the  roof  of  her  house  and  the  upper  story 
windows. 

"  John-Hector !  "  she  called  gaily. 

The  young  man  jerked  himself  up  and 
looked  about. 

«  Hello,  Nelly  !  "  he  said ;  "  it's  you." 
And  without  special  display  of  solicitude  or 
pleasure  he  got  up.  He  appeared  half  sullen, 
half  torpid.  But  a  dark  redness,  slowly  up- 
creeping,  was  coming  to  complicate  his  sum- 
mer sunburn.  "  Why  haven't  you  gone  to 
your  party  ? " 

Nelly  smiled  brightly.  "  I  have  come  to 
show  you  my  dress  !  " 

"  I  don't  want  to  see  your  dress ! "  he 
said,  and  turned  away.  He  went  to  the  spot 
he  had  risen  from,  threw  himself  down  on 
his  stomach  and  gazed  at  the  landscape.  It 
would  have  been  difficult  to  look  more  unsen- 
timental. He  was  a  good-sized  athletic 
young  man,  with  a  thick  mat  of  brown  hair 
that  still  took  boyish  gilt  high-lights ;  not  posi- 
28 


April's  Sowing 

lively  handsome,  but  with  a  nose  that  started 
rather  superbly  from  between  his  eyebrows, 
and  a  deep  chin  that  made  good  somehow 
his  middle  name. 

Nelly  came  nearer,  wearing  a  comedy 
face,  looking  about  as  if  for  a  lost  pin,  for  a 
place  to  sit. 

He  paid  no  attention  to  her  for  a  moment ; 
then,  hearing  rustlings  he  could  not  interpret, 
looked  frankly  over  his  shoulder,  and  saw  her 
seated  on  his  down-turned  fish-bucket,  her 
draperies  spread  wide  about  her. 

"You  look  like  a  lovely  pen-wiper!"  he 
said,  and  was  forced  to  smile;  the  smile  was 
always  good  to  see  in  his  face,  committed  by 
its  bare  lines  to  an  ordinary  expression  of 
dignified  gloom  and  obstinacy,  which  really 
belied  his  disposition.  He  pulled  himself  a 
little  nearer  to  her,  by  his  elbows,  and  allowed 
himself  to  look  a  fraction  of  the  content  he 
was  beginning  to  feel  now  that  it  appeared 
she  intended  staying  a  moment. 

"  Don't  you  think  it  was  amiable  of  me  to 


April's  Sowing 

come,  when  I  am  about  three  hours  late  ?  " 

"  That  depends.  I  don't  think  you  care 
that  how  late  you  are  at  people's  houses. 
And  I  haven't  the  least  idea  that  you  came 
just  to  be  good  to  me." 

"  How  well  you  know  me  !  "  she  sighed, 
looking  heavenward.  Then  she  let  her  eyes 
decline  upon  his,  and  tangled  his  glance  in 
the  blue  glance  that  seemed  at  her  will  to 
take  on  a  golden  sunny  quality.  "  You  know 
me  so  well,  don't  you,  John-Hector  ?  Just 
like  one  of  your  old  pockets.  It  is  true  that 
there  is  little  to  know." 

"No.  I  don't  know  you.  I  don't  pre- 
tend to.  Not  that  I  think  girls  the  mysteries 
it  has  become  an  agreed  thing  to  call  them. 
But  you  change  so.  I  can't  keep  track  of 
you.  Now  if  this  had  happened  before  yes- 
terday  " 

"  If  what  had  happened  ?  " 

"  This.  Your  coming  to  let  me  too  have 
a  little  look  at  you  in  all  your  glory — I  should 
have  thought  that  you  did  have  a  grain  of 
3° 


April's  Sowing 

good  nature  pure  and  simple  in  your  compo- 
sition." 

"  Oh,  the  conceit  of  a  man  !  " 

"  There  !  You  see  ?  Not  a  bit  of  it ! 
Not  that  I  know  how  what  I  said  could  be 
called  conceited.  Never  fear  I  shall  lay  any- 
thing you  do  in  reference  to  me  to  any  motive 
that  could  flatter  me." 

"Why  I  really  came,"  said  Nelly,  "was  to 
find  out  whether  my  father  told  you  you 
might  fish  here.  He  stocked  this  pond,  you 
may  not  know,  but  he  is  so  good-natured  (the 
good  nature  you  have  discovered  in  me  I  get 
from  him)  that  no  one  takes  any  notice  of 
the  trespass  signs.  I  have  overheard  him 
softly  cussing  about  it  a  dozen  times.  When 
from  my  window  I  caught  sight  of  the  tip  of 
your  rod  bobbing  up  and  down  above  the 
hedge,  I  said  to  myself,  c  It  will  be  a  good 
deed  to  warn  that  young  man.'" 

"Well,  you  can't  say  you  found  me  fish- 
ing, can  you  ? " 

They  did  not  hunt  down  this  small  jest  to 

3' 


April's  Sowing 

its  finish ;  the  exercise  must  have  seemed  in- 
fantile even  to  them. 

After  a  comfortable  silence,  during  which 
the  beauty  of  the  place  and  hour  made  them 
dimly,  luxuriously  aware  of  it,  she  said, 
"  What  were  you  doing  ?  Just  lying  there  ? " 

"Sleeping." 

She  was  pleased  to  see  that  he  had  caught 
interest  at  last  in  her  gown.  She  looked 
down  over  herself,  as  he  was  looking.  She 
stiffened  out  a  ribbon-loop.  Then  she  looked 
at  him,  to  see  how  he  was  pleased.  And 
they  looked  at  each  other,  half-smiling;  in 
the  expression  of  their  eyes  suggesting  per- 
haps at  that  moment  to  some  great  immortal 
unseen  observer  an  affinity  with  two  soft 
young  moths,  basking  recklessly,  the  one,  in 
a  blinding  beautiful  beacon-light,  the  other, 
curious  chilly  vagrant,  fluttering  nearer  and 
nearer  out  of  the  cool  safe  twilight  to  warm 
itself  at  a  glowing  forge-fire. 

"  Pretty,  isn't  it? "  she  said. 

"  Stunning !  " 

3* 


April's  Sowing 

"  I  am  glad  to  hear  you  praise  it." 

"  You  got  your  feet  wet,  though,"  he 
blurted  out,  as  if  he  had  made  a  point  in  some 
argument. 

For  a  second  she  looked  disconcerted. 
Then  she  said  with  a  clear  brow,  and  the 
easy  playful  voice  of  a  moment  before,  "  You 
don't  imagine  these  are  the  shoes  I  propose 
wearing  ?  I  am  going  to  put  on  green  ones, 
to  match  the  grass.  Think  how  absurd 
white  ones  would  look  after  half-an-hour 
walking  in  Miss  Cox's  dirty  garden  walks." 

But  John-Hector  was  not  heeding  what 
she  said.  He  was  absorbed  in  something  on 
the  ground.  His  face  was  earthwards,  not 
to  be  seen. 

"  You  have  got  your  poor  little  feet  wet," 
he  said,  and  bent  his  head  first  over  one  shoe- 
toe,  then  the  other,  and  kissed  them. 

A  laugh  came  from  Nelly,  like  a  bird-note 

shaken   out   in   mid-flight.     Then   she   said, 

with  a  vague   unconscious   infection   in   her 

tone  of  the  tenderness  in  his,  "  What  a  baby 

33 


April's  Sowing 

you  are  !  Don't  be  silly.  There !  Let  go 
my  foot.  Let  it  go,  I  say  !  " 

But  he  held  on,  and  appeared  to  be  laugh- 
ing too,  though  he  scarcely  opened  his  jaws. 

"  Nelly  Brown,"  he  said,  "  you  can  deny 
me  whatever  you  please,  and  trample  on  me, 
and  torment  me,  and  tower  above  me ;  but 
never,  never  shall  I  be  made  to  share  your 
conviction  that  even  a  spattered  little  shoe 
like  that  is  too  good  for  me  to  kiss.  No,  no, 
dear  " — (Nelly  had  long  wearied  of  the  inef- 
fectual attempt  to  make  him  give  up  calling 
her  dear  when  they  were  alone) — "  upon 
my  word,  I  am  not  going  to  be  bad.  I  beg 
your  pardon !  It  was  only  a  little  joke. 
Don't  go.  Do  stay  a  little  while." 

"  Go  and  sit  off  over  there,  then." 

"  No,  I  won't.  Let  me  be  where  I  am. 
I'll  behave  myself.  Honest.  You  haven't 
a  bit  of  mercy  on  a  fellow,  have  you  ?  Stay 
and  talk  a  little  while.  I  haven't  seen  you 
at  all  yet.  I  haven't  really  seen  you  for  days. 
I  don't  call  it  seeing  you  when  there  are 
34 


April's  Sowing 

others.  You  haven't  even  given  me  time  to 
admire  your  dress  properly.  My  word,  it  is 
pretty,  Nelly  !  The  skirt  looks  like  a  big 
white  double  petunia,  all  flaring  out  and 
crinkled  at  the  edges." 

" A  petunia  ?      Horrors  !  " 

"  Well,  something  lovelier,  then.  How 
vain  you  are !  I  do  believe  you  care  for 
nothing  in  this  world  so  much  as  your 
clothes." 

"  Of  course.  Such  is  my  charming  na- 
ture." 

"  And  why  do  you  care  for  clothes,  I  should 
like  to  know  ?  God  knows  He  made  you 
pretty.  But  that  is  not  enough  for  you  ;  you 
want  to  make  yourself  just  as  much  prettier 
as  is  humanly  possible.  And  why  ?  You 
want  everybody  to  fall  in  love  with  you. 
What  right  have  you  to  want  people  to  fall 
in  love  with  you,  when  you  are  so  determined 
never  to  give  a  crumb  in  return  ? " 

"  There  is  perhaps  a  great  deal  of  point  in 
what  you  say,  John-Hector.  Should  you 
35 


April's  Sowing 

advise  me  to  wear  my  hair  plain  hereafter  ? 
It  is  frightfully  unbecoming,  but  I  should  be 
saved  so  much  time  and  bother.  You  have 
no  idea  the  pains  I  take  with  my  looks.  And 
all,  as  I  now  find,  from  a  mistaken  ideal  of 
duty,  when  I  ought  instead  to  have  been 
studying  how  to  spare  the  sensibilities  of  the 
poor  strong  sex." 

"  Nelly  Brown,  look  me  square  in  the  eyes. 
Will  you  tell  me  that  you  don't  want  people 
to  fall  in  love  with  you  ? " 

Nelly  spent  a  good  minute  laughing  on  her 
bucket,  but  made  no  better  answer. 

"  Nelly,"  said  John-Hector  darkly,  though 
he  had  been  dragged  along  by  her  lengthened 
laughter  into  laughing  too,  "you  are  not 
more  than  twenty.  Would  you  mind  telling 
me  how  many  have  been  in  love  with  you 
already  ? " 

"You  mean,  technically,  how  many 'offers' 
I  have  had  ?  " 

"  Yes.  I  have  always  wondered,  as  a  pure 
matter  of  curiosity,  how  many  times  an  at- 
36 


April's  Sowing 

tractive  girl  might  have  to  deal  with  that  sit- 
uation. Come,  be  frank.  Four  ?  Five  ?  " 

"  Hey,  my  dear  boy,  you  put  it  too 
low !  " 

"  I  have  nothing  to  go  by,  you  see. 
Fifty  ? " 

"  Hold  on  !  Now  you  have  it  a  trifle 
high.  I  don't  believe  such  a  number  as  that 
would  be  likely,  except  in  the  case  perhaps 
of  some  one  on  the  comic  stage.  I  did 
hear  a  girl  say  once  that  she  had  had  twenty- 
four  declarations  of  love  in  a  year,  but  I  al- 
ways misdoubted  a  lot  of  them  came  from 
the  same  person.  I  don't  call  that  counting 
fair.  Should  you  ?  Certainly,  something 
like  a  month  apiece  is  not  too  much  to  allow, 
on  an  average,  to  reduce  a  healthy,  well- 
grown  man  to  a  smooth  paste " 

"  Nelly,  it  is  astonishing  to  me  how  horrid 
nice  girls  can  be  !  " 

"  John-Hector,"  cried  Nelly,  apparently  in 
the  extremity  of  delight,  "  say  at  once  that  I 
am  vulgar.  I  heard  the  other  day  that  Miss 

37 


April's  Sowing 

Jarvis  had  started  a  rumor  that  I  was  vulgar. 
She  must  have  meant  merely  that  we  are 
nouveaux  riches.  I  am  vulgar,  but  she  can't 
possibly  know  it !  " 

"  Miss  Jarvis  is  a  fool !  " 

"  Always  right,  John  !  It  is  true  I  con- 
verse with  you  in  this  merry  little  unaffected 
way — it's  good  enough  for  you,  John  !  But 
when  occasion  seems  to  require  it,  I  assure 
you  I  can  talk  like  a  young  lady  in  a  pretty 
good  book.  I  am  off  to  Miss  Cox's  now, 
hoping  to  find  Miss  Jarvis  there,  and  make 
her  feel  that  if  she  says  again  I  am  vulgar, 
people  will  know  she  is  envious." 

"  Oh,  don't  get  up  yet.  Please  stay  !  Just 
a  minute  longer !  What  will  you  do  at  Miss 
Cox's,  after  all,  of  any  importance,  that  you 
can't  just  as  well  do  here  ?  There's  not  a 
soul  will  be  more  impressed  this  afternoon 
than  I.  Devote  yourself  to  fascinating  me, 
Nelly.  I  am  not  really  properly  finished  off 
yet,  you  know.  I  can  show  fight  still. 
There  are  sparks  of  pride  and  will  left  in  me 
38 


April's  Sowing 

yet.  Perhaps  I  could  be  made  a  little  miser- 
abler  too." 

"  And  I  came  all  the  way  from  the  house 
up  there,  I  crossed  a  quagmire,  to  raise  the 
spirits — of  this  ! " 

"  You  angel,  Nelly  !  Ain't  I  groveling  on 
the  ground  before  you  for  it  ?  Why  did  you 
leave  off  laughing  ?  We  were  both  joking, 
weren't  we  ?  Was  I  rude,  dearest  ?  Did  it 
sound  as  if  I  felt  bitter  ?  You  who  are  so  gen- 
erous— yes,  you  are  !  Do  you  suppose  I  don't 
know  that  no  other  girl  alive  would  have  let 
me  bore  her  on  and  on  ? — can't  you  put  your- 
self in  the  place  of  a  fellow  who  knows  he 
can  never  get  what  he  wants,  and  that  he  can 
never  in  nature  stop  wanting  it  ?  Can't  you 
feel  for  him  enough  not  to  go  off  mad  at  him 
when  he's  on  a  gridiron  ?  " 

Nelly  had  arisen  and  taken  a  few  steps 
under  the  pine-trees.  She  turned.  "  That," 
she  said  dryly,  "  is  all  nonsense.  And  it  is 
not  even  new  to  me.  I  remember  some  one 
saying  almost  that  very  same  thing  to  me 
39 


April's  Sowing 

once,  and  not  long  after  I  received  his  wed- 
ding-cards. You  can't  start  an  argument 
with  that  sort  of  proposition,  you  know.  It 
is  a  widely  known  fact  that  these  undying 
passions  are  straw-fires.  A  person  doesn't 
have  to  be  any  older  than  I  to  know  it  by  ex- 
perience. It  is  that  that  gives  girls  such  an 
easy  conscience  after  all." 

"  Now,  it  would  be  amusing,  really,  that 
women  should  resent  rejected  men  sometimes 
recovering  from  the  blow.  Your  voice  sounded 
quite  contemptuous.  And  I  wish "  (he  in- 
terpolated querulously)  "  you  wouldn't  talk  to 
me  about  other  men  !  I  have  not  had  your 
vast  experience,  of  course.  I  can't  positively 
say  that  I  shall  always  feel  as  accursed  as  I 
do  this  minute.  I  hope  I  sha'n't !  But  I 
know  this :  that  it  is  not  possible,  while  I 
have  the  same  eyes  in  my  head,  and  the  same 
sort  of  organ  for  heart,  that  I  should  see  you, 
and  not  think  of  you  as  I  do,  and  want  you 
accordingly." 

Nelly  laughed  a  little  emptily,  as  if  at  a 
40 


April's  Sowing 

silly  time-worn  compliment.  Looking  at 
every  second  as  if  about  to  leave,  she  yet 
lingered,  listening. 

"  Oh,  good  Lord,  if  everything  were  dif- 
ferent ! "  exclaimed  John-Hector,  in  a  near 
approach  to  a  groan  ;  "  if  we  were  savages  on 
a  South  Sea  island,  or  even  poor  working 
people  in  the  same  factory !  " 

"  Now  you  are  going  to  be  tiresome.  Now 
it  is  really  time  for  me  to  go.  It  is  a  pity 
that  all  our  scenes  should  end  like  this.  We 
begin  so  pleasantly  always,  like  a  pair  of  good 
friends,  and  I  think  you  have  turned  sensible, 
and  then  you  go  back  like  this." 

"  No,  I  don't.  No  I'm  not.  Not  at  all. 
But  I  shall  never  believe  that  you  wouldn't 
in  time  care  for  me  a  little,  if  you  would  just 
try.  Don't  be  vexed.  It's  not  conceit.  It's 
simple  common  sense.  If  that's  not  so,  all 
creation  is  absolutely  wrong,  and  the  Almighty 
didn't  know  what  he  was  about." 

"  But  listen  to  me,  John-Hector.  If  I  had 
been  going  to  try  to  care  for  any  one,  why 
4* 


April's  Sowing 

not  the  first  who  requested  me  to  ?  And 
then  on  the  occasion  of  our  first  meeting  you 
would  have  been  presented  to  the  fiancee  of 
Mr.  Eddy  Bangs,  once  my  book-carrier  to 
Cloverfield  grammar-school.  How  would 
that  have  helped  your  case  ?  And  if  now, 
convinced  by  your  argument,  I  were  to  make 
the  effort  you  speak  of,  how  would  it  help 
the  case  of  that  not  unimaginable  He  of  the 
future,  the  one  that  in  card-fortune-telling 
would  be  referred  to  as  my  fate?" 

41  Don't,  Nelly  !  Whoever  he  is,  damn 
him — (no,  no,  pardon,  dear !  but  it's  what  I 
meant !) — he  won't  care  as  I  do.  He  won't 
care  a  grain  more,  anyhow.  And  he's  mere 
rubbish  at  the  present  moment — he's  utter, 
confounded  rubbish.  And  here  am  I,  one 
sure-enough  mass  of  ploughed-up  humanity. 
As  I  live,  Nelly,  I  would  try  to  be  worthy  of 
you.  I  know  that  these  matters  don't  go  by 
merit,  though.  I  should  have  loved  you 
whatever  you  had  been  !  And  if  I  had  been 
an  Adonis,  lined  with  an  archangel,  you  would 
42 


April's  Sowing 

have  been  just  as  little  likely  to  care  for  me. 
But  out  of  pure  gratitude  I  would  try  to  be 
whatever  sort  of  man  you  pleased.  I  think  I 
could  grow  religious,  just  to  show  Heaven 
my  sense  of  indebtedness.  Oh,  there  !  *'-— 
John-Hector  broke  into  a  grating  laugh — 
"hear  me  rant!  No  wonder  it  makes  you 
sick!  As  if  I  didn't  know  just  how  much 
difference  it  will  make !  Oh,  I  am  damned  ! 
There  are  some  people,  you  know,  my  father 
among  them,  who  think  that  when  a  man  is 
nobody  and  has  nothing  to  offer,  he  should 
not  think  of  marriage.  And  quite  right. 
Whoever  isn't  well-off  should  be  made  of 
india-rubber.  Good  Lord!  As  if  to  marry 
were  what  I  want !  It  isn't  that  I  want  to 
marry !  I  want  you ! — Go  along  to  your 
party,  Nelly,  will  you?  and  let  me  alone." 

"I  wish,"  said  Nelly,  with  a  rather  blank 
face,  "I  wish  you  wouldn't  feel  like  that!" 

"Don't  let  it  trouble  you,  dearest  girl.  I 
know  I  am  a  beast  to  bother  you.  Don't 
you  feel  bad;  that  is  all  that  really  matters. 
43 


April's  Sowing 

Go  along  to  Miss  Cox's,  and  think  no  more 
about  it.  I  dare  say  all  will  happen  as  you 
say ;  some  day  you  will  get  my  wedding-cards, 
too.  Go  along,  Nelly." 

Now  was  certainly  Nelly  Brown's  cue  to 
go.  But  she  remained  under  the  pine  trees, 
looking  at  a  branch  overhead  and  fingering  a 
little  projection  in  the  bark. 

"  Men,"  she  said  after  a  considerable  silence, 
"are  such  curious  beings!" 

"Men,"  she  said,  after  another  silence, 
"are  certainly  the  most  extraordinary  animal 
I  have  ever  had  anything  to  do  with." 

John-Hector  was  flinging  bits  of  stuff  off 
the  ground  into  the  water. 

"Men,"  began  Nelly  again,  and  broke  ofF, 
laughing  rather  nervously,  "well,  if  there  is 
any  logic  in  them,  it  is  too  well  hidden  for  me 
to  find!" 

"The  things  you  are  saying,"  remarked 
John-Hector,  in  an  unamiable  tone,  without 
looking  around  at  her,  "are  usually  said  of 
your  sex." 


April's  Sowing 

"Oh,  women  are  consistency  itself  by  the 
side  of  men.  I  wonder,  intelligent  as  you 
sometimes  appear  to  be — you  down  there! — 
that  you  have  never  been  struck  by  certain 

facts.  For  instance But  no.  Good 

afternoon.  If  a  person  doesn't  see  such 
things  for  himself,  there  can  be  no  use  in 
pointing  them  out." 

"  Go  on,  Nelly.  Go  on  and  tell  me. 
What  were  you  going  to  say  ? " 

"No,  on  second  thoughts,  I  must  really 
hurry  home.  I  shouldn't  know  exactly  how 
to  put  it,  anyhow.  And  if  I  did,  you  might 
not  understand  it." 

"  Oh,  don't  tease  me !  In  such  a  fix 
as  I  am  I  ought  to  be  almost  sacred.  You 
shouldn't  tease  me.  Let  me  hear  what  it 
was — about  men." 

"Well,  you,  for  instance,  there,  you  long, 
strong,  lazy,  sprawling  boy  on  the  ground. 
You  pretend  to  care  the  everlasting  world 
about  me.  You  get  so  indignant  when  I 
pretend  not  to  believe  you.  You  make  a 
45 


April's  Sowing 

show  of  modesty,  too,  and  acknowledge  that 
you  are  not  good  enough  for  me.  You  are 
at  this  point  of  life  rather  a  failure,  confess. 
Oh,  I  am  not  saying  this  to  be  brutal!  I 
sympathize  with  all  my  heart.  All  your  folks 
have  you  in  their  black  books.  You  got  into 
scrape  after  scrape  at  college.  You  slighted 
your  work  for  certain  sports  and  amusements, 
and  when  you  were  qualified  to  astonish  all 
in  these,  your  father  interfered  because  you 
were  not  a  more  creditable  student.  Oh,  I 
know  all  about  it — who  doesn't?  And  you 
crawled  through  your  examinations,  and  every 
one  is  thoroughly  disgusted  with  you.  Oh, 
not  I,  John  dear.  /  can  see  how  it  happened. 
I  should  probably  have  been  one  of  the  bad 
boys  myself.  Still,  I  shouldn't  be  exactly 
proud  of  you,  if  you  belonged  to  me.  And 
now  when,  as  it  goes  without  saying,  I  have 
refused  you,  you  sit  down  and  mope." 

"  Stop,  Nelly  !     Don't  rub  where  it  is  raw. 
I  know  I  am  a  worm.     I  am  out  and  out  de- 
moralized, I  know.     But  you  won't  have  to 
46 


April's  Sowing 

put  up  with  me  much  longer,  nor  will  any 
one  else.  I  am  going  out  West,  presently, 
to  shift  for  myself.  I  have  been  putting 
it  off  from  week  to  week,  to  get  up  the 
resolution  to  leave  you." 

"And  that  will  be  a  pretty  end  to  make! 
Of  a  piece  with  all  the  rest!  A  proper  re- 
turn to  your  poor  father  and  folks  who 
scrimmaged  to  send  you  to  college.  Why 
should  I  pretend  not  to  know  it?  And  your 
father's  ambition  for  you  was  that  you  too 
should  be  a  doctor." 

"  Don't  speak  of  them.  I  don't  feel  bound 
to  them,  Nelly,  one-  atom,  whatever  I  might 
have  felt  if  it  had  turned  out  a  success.  All 
they  did  for  me,  they  have  taken  their  pay- 
ment for  it  out  of  me  since  my  return  home." 

"There,  you  see?  And  that  is  the  kind 
of  creature  you  have  been  pressing  upon  me, 
and  marveling,  I  dare  say,  in  your  heart  at 
my  uneagerness  to  have." 

"  No,  Nelly.  Do  stop !  I  fell  in  love 
with  you — I  couldn't  help  that,  could  I? — 
47 


April's  Sowing 

and  acted  after  my  kind  in  telling  you.  We 
are  selfish  brutes,  it  is  a  fact.  But  I  have 
never  had  any  real  hope.  But  between  that 
and  absolutely  giving  up  and  packing  off, 
there  is  a  step.  You  can't  understand  these 
things,  Nelly ;  how  could  you  ?  Imagine  that 
I  have  the  morphine  habit,  and  that  seeing 
you  is  my  little  dose  of  peace,  and  that  I 
haven't  been  able  to  break  myself  of  it  all  at 
once." 

"And  now,  when  you  shall  have  become 
thoroughly  convinced  that  you  won't  do  for 
me,  you  are  going  away,  in  disgrace  with 
everybody,  to  lose  yourself  obscurely  in  the 
crowd." 

"My  dearest,  if  you  knew  the  little  I  care 
what  happens  after  I  leave  this  place !  All  I 
know  beyond  you  is  that  I  can't  bear  any 
longer  to  be  dependent  on  my  father.  He 
makes  it  the  devil." 

"  Come,  haven't  you  deserved  it  ?  Come ! 
As  I  was  saying,  you  are  off  to  follow  your 
bad  beginning  in  the  way  least  chafing  to 
48 


April's  Sowing 

your  pride.  When  all  is  said,  you  will  have 
uttered  a  hundred  thousand  words  of  love  to 
me,  and  not  done  one  first  little  thing  to 
prove  them.  You  will  have  absolutely  tried 
to  earn  me  with  words  alone,  and  shadow- 
ing me  about,  and  a  pair  of  kisses  on  my 
shoes!" 

"Nelly!"  said  John-Hector,  half  rising, 
"wait,  dear!  Do  you  mean — do  you  mean 
that  if " 

"  No,  no,  no,"  said  Nelly,  quickly,  "  that 
is  not  the  point.  I  am  placed  altogether  out 
of  the  question.  The  point  is  not  whether 
I,  under  any  possible  circumstances,  could 
care  for  you,  but  how  you,  caring  for  me  as 
you  swear  by  your  great  gods  beyond  every 
earthly  thing,  can  settle  down,  poor-spirited, 
ineffectual,  unconsidered  and  inconsiderable, 
and  be  satisfied  that  your  wooing  has  been  a 
tribute !  " 

"Nelly,"  said  John-Hector,  whose  face 
wore  a  very  wide-open  look,  "  wait !  I  don't 
entirely  grasp — I  know  I  am  a  fool — 
49 


April's  Sowing 

but   if — oh,  Nelly,  dear  Nelly,  are  you   be- 
ing an  angel  to  me  ?  " 

"  No  !  "  cried  Nelly,  irritably,  and  stamped 
her  foot.  "  That's  not  it  at  all !  That  has 
nothing  to  do  with  it !  You  are  very  much 
mistaken  if  you  think  I  have  been  occupied 
with  showing  you  a  way.  I  knew  you  had  a 
vulgar  mind,  and  wouldn't  understand,  that 
was  why  I  preferred  to  hold  my  tongue.  I 
have  simply  pointed  out  to  you  how  insulting 
your  attitude  might  be  called.  It  is  my  ruf- 
fled vanity  that  speaks.  It  is  my  offended 
artistic  sense.  That  a  man  who  can't  get 
me,  insignificant  as  he  is,  should  not  even 
have  it  occur  to  him  to  become  the  most 
splendid  fellow  in  the  world,  to  see  if  it 
would  make  a  difference.  The  point  is  not 
whether  it  would.  I  may  know  full  well 
that  it  would  not,  but  that  it  is  my  part  to 
know,  not  his.  If  his  devotion  were  not  the 
provisional  sort,  if  he  were  one-half  the  lover 
he  declares,  he  ought  to  wish  to  try  every- 
thing, yes,  everything,  without  even  the 
50 


April's  Sowing 

shadow  of  a  hope  !  That  is  why  I  said  that 
men  are  the  funniest  spectacle  under  the 
sun,  because  they  wonder  at  women  not  put- 
ting strict  faith  in  their  protestations,  when 
nothing  has  shown  they  are  not  hollow,  and 
it  is  the  fable  and  laughter  of  the  ages  that 
they  are  hollow !  They  say :  1 1  would 
make  myself  worthy  of  you,  if — Yes,  if! 
When  everything  was  past  taking  back,  the 
lady  would  discover  at  her  leisure  just  how 
worthy  the  gentleman  meant  to  become. 
Why  won't  he  become  worthy  of  her  first, 
if  for  nothing  but  the  compliment  of  the 
thing  ?  c  Yes,'  say  you,  c  and  by  the  time 
he  was  worthy,  she  might  have  become 
united  to  some  one  else,  good  enough  at  the 
outset.'  c  Well,'  then  say  I,  c  what  harm 
would  it  do  him  to  be  worthy  ?  He  would 
be  left,  at  all  events,  with  a  valuable  souvenir 
of  the  girl !  *  " 

"  Nelly,"  said  John-Hector,  now  through 
and  through  bestirred,  "  I  am  going  to  Ger- 
many to  work  like  a  dog  for  that   doctor's 
51 


April's  Sowing 

degree.  I  will  get  it,  I  swear  to  you.  Is 
there  nothing  you  want  between  this  and  my 
leaving  ?  Shall  I  get  you  down  the  moon  ? — 
No,  no,  darling,  don't  say  it  all  over  again  ; 
that  it  will  make  no  difference  whatever  to 
you  personally.  Don't  seem  so  deadly  afraid 
that  I  shall  have  even  the  faintest  glimmer- 
ing hope  of  a  reward.  Please  don't  talk  to 
me  about  your  artistic  sense.  (Aren't  you 
ashamed  !)  I  am  going  to  eat  husks  at  my 
father's  hands,  and  take  lectures  from  them 
all,  and  be  patted  on  the  head,  and  embrace 
the  life  of  a  reform  school — but  not,  let  me 
warn  you,  with  any  of  the  vague  lover's 
ideals  you  hold  up  to  me.  I'm  not  a  fellow 
in  a  book.  I  must  have  my  own  dream  to 
put  heart  into  me.  It  may  be  as  empty  as 
you  want  to  make  sure  I  shall  believe,  but  I 
am  not  going  to  believe  it !  No,  no,  dear ; 
don't  say  what  you  are  going  to !  Don't 
spoil  all — don't  take  everything  back  and 
make  me  worse  off  than  before.  Be  a  kind 
dear — just  keep  silent !  What  harm  will  it 
5* 


April's  Sowing 

do  to  you,  if  you  are  finally  determined  to 
break  my  heart,  that  for  a  little  while  I 
should  have  imagined  things  ?  And  I  have 
an  artistic  sense,  too,  and  that  is  rasped,  let 
me  tell  you,  when  you  seem  to  be  laying  the 
ground  already  for  a  defence  of  yourself  in 
some  distant  emergency  against  the  imputa- 
tion of  having  given  me  the  slightest  claim 
upon  you.  Am  I  such  a  low  brute  that 
I  shall  ever  reproach  you,  whatever  hap- 
pens ?  I  have  no  vestige  of  claim,  that  is 
understood.  I  belong  to  you,  not  you  to 
me.  But  if,  when  I  come  back,  I  find  at 
your  side  that  not  impossible  He  you  tact- 
fully referred  to,  I  am  going  to  kill  him,  that 
is  all.  For  there  is  not  going  to  be  any  fate 
but  me,  Nelly ;  get  that  well  into  your  darling 
head !  " 

"  You  are  very  stupid ! "  faltered  Nelly, 
with  a  sniff  and  small  grimace  that  smoothed 
itself  out  to  a  little  air  of  patience  and 
disdain. 

But  John-Hector  was  too  far  gone  over  on 
53 


April's  Sowing 

the  side  of  bliss  to  recover  his  balance  at 
once.  He  burst  into  a  happy  laugh,  and 
came  nearer  over  the  moss.  He  had  through- 
out the  interview  refrained  from  rising,  as 
one  does  to  keep  another  from  going. 

"Make  yourself  look  as  tall  as  you  please," 
he  now  said,  "  and  white  as  an  angel,  and 
forbidding  as  a  princess.  You  shall  be  just 
as  you  please.  You  shall  be  queen.  Set  me 
as  hard  tasks  as  you  choose,  I  am  going  to 
accomplish  them.  Put  up  what  barriers  you 
please  between  us,  I  am  going  to  cross  them. 
And  if  in  the  end  it  is  all  nothing — why, 
God  bless  you,  dearest  !  God  bless  you  a 
thousand  thousand  times,  the  best  and  dearest 
thing  he  ever  made  !  "  And  John-Hector 
who  had  got  near  enough  bent  his  head  again 
over  her  shoes,  and  with  an  inarticulate  sound 
of  caress  and  laughter,  kissed  them.  Then 
he  looked  up,  smiling  to  her,  where  she  stood 
and  could  not  find  her  voice ;  and  gathering 
boldness  from  Heaven  knew  what  circum- 
stance, kissed  the  gloved  hand  at  her  side ; 
54 


April's  Sowing 

and  when  she  put  it  behind   her,  kissed   its 
place  on  her  white  dress. 

Nelly  afterwards  in  reflecting  on  the  scene 
could  not  conceive  what  she  had  been  doing 
while  all  this  happened ;  she  thought  she 
must  have  had  a  lapse  from  common  con- 
sciousness ;  for  when  John-Hector  got  to  his 
feet  and  stood  over  her,  she  seemed  to  come 
to  herself  with  a  little  shock.  As  she  re- 
called the  impression  of  the  moment,  his 
eyes,  which  were  nearer  than  ever  before, 
seen  at  that  range  looked  truer,  profounder, 
more  dedicated,  than  she  could  have  known 
had  they  always  preserved  their  distance. 
There  was  something  in  them  that  disarmed, 
that  made  it  suddenly  seem  ridiculous  and 
petty  to  fortify  oneself  against  them  with  a 
remembrance  of  the  conventions  of  the 
world.  She  knew  she  had  cried  out,  "  No, 
no,  no  !  "  and  gasped  as  if  fallen  in  icy  water, 
and  pushed  ;  but  she  could  not  assure  her- 
self that  she  had  valiantly  and  single-mindedly 
and  to  the  end  avoided  his  lips.  So  possible 
55 


April's  Sowing 

had  it  seemed  that  even  in  his  ardent  preoc- 
cupation he  might  have  distinguished  it,  if 
so  were  that  in  a  rising  tide  of  sweet  feeling 
she  could  not  explain  she  had  relaxed  for  a 
second  in  his  hold  and  become  as  good  as  his 
accomplice,  that  afterwards,  when  their  faces 
were  well  apart,  she  could  not  find  the  ready 
hypocrisy  to  make  a  show  of  indignation. 
She  laughed  instead  an  awkward,  tremulous 
little  laugh ;  and  they  looked  at  each  other — .• 
then  she  looked  away,  anywhere,  and  knew, 
without  a  word  being  spoken,  that  it  was 
agreed  between  them  no  reference  should 
ever  be  made  to  this  matter. 

"  Now,  surely,  it  is  time  for  me  to  go," 
said  Nelly. 

"  I  will  go  with  you,"  said  John-Hector 
readily.  "  I  will  lift  you  across  the  bad 
places." 

"  Don't  believe  it !  " 

"  We  shall  know  better  afterwards  what 
to  believe,  little  Nelly,  don't  you  think  ?  " 

"  If  you  touch  me,"  she  said  petulantly, 
56 


April's  Sowing 

"  I  will  never  speak  to  you  again,  that  is 
all." 

"  Very  well,  dearest ;  you  shall  wet  your 
little  feet  some  more  !  " 

As  they  went,  they  came  to  chatting  in  a 
light-minded  strain,  not  much  considering 
what  was  said.  John-Hector  grew  more 
extraordinarily  jolly,  Nelly  more  reserved 
with  every  step. 

At  the  fence,  it  was  a  haughty  damsel  who, 
when  her  swain  desired  to  help  her  over  it, 
ordered,  "Take  down  the  bars !  " 

When  she  had  been  obeyed,  she  dismissed 
her  companion  and  continued  the  way  alone. 

Chief  among  her  feelings  was,  perhaps,  at 
the  moment,  exulting  satisfaction  in  her 
lover's  manner  of  being :  brusque  and  cold 
and  rather  formidable  with  all  the  world  be- 
side, with  her  such  a  dear,  tender  fool. 

On  her  way  to  Miss  Cox's  she  seemed  to 

be  pleading  a  cause  with  the  World  which  is 

too  much  with  us.     "  No,"  she  said  at  one 

stage  of  the  defence,  "  it  cannot  be  wrong. 

57 


April 'j-  Sowing 

In  cases  of  a  lesser  feeling,  I  grant  you.  But 
where  a  man  loves  you  more  than  his  life,  it 
is  not  wrong."  And  later  she  opposed  the 
World's  further  caviling  with  a  heated,  ironi- 
cal, "  Surely,  where  a  man's  thought  is  always 
and  always  wrapping  you  about,  and  it  can 
by  no  means  known  be  prevented,  it  would 
be  nonsense  to  make  an  astonished  clamor 
when  for  once  his  sentiment  slips  into  ex- 
pressing itself  by  a  natural  outward  symbol. 
Besides  " — she  summed  up  the  case  and  dis- 
missed the  World — "  it  is  no  business  of 
yours.  It  is  strictly  my  personal  affair." 

She  leaned  back  in  the  carriage. 

She  wondered  to  see  Miss  Cox's  gate-posts 
flash  past.  She  became  awake  to  figures 
moving  in  the  distance.  It  did  not  seem 
possible  that  it  was  still  the  day  on  which 
she  had  sent  Murrie  ahead  to  herald  her  to 
this  assembly. 


FOR  several  days  Nelly  Brown  avoided 
John-Hector.  She  did  not  go  to  the  places 
where  she  was  looked  for;  she  did  not  leave 
the  house  at  her  usual  hours ;  she  followed 
an  unfailing  intuition  of  the  time  at  which  he 
would  call :  he  could  never  find  her  in. 
Once  she  saw  him  posted  near  the  road,  and 
in  a  spirit  of  wicked  fun,  drove  past  at  such 
a  rate  that  he  could  not  very  well  stop  the 
carriage.  She  retained  a  vision  of  his  face. 
It  vexed  her:  a  man  should  be  successful  in 
these  matters. 

59 


April's  Sowing 

She  knew  that  after  this  he  would  haunt 
the  immediate  neighborhood,  and  her  last 
ruse  was  to  leave  the  house  by  a  seldom  used 
side-door.  She  feared  it  would  be  her  last, 
though  she  meant  still  to  see  what  could  be 
done. 

She  was  going  to  Miss  Cox's  again ;  this 
time,  to  lend  her  decorative  person  to  a  tab- 
leau: She  was  to  figure  as  the  Rose,  and 
Miss  Cox's  nephew  as  the  Nightingale.  She 
was  in  pink  from  her  top-knot  to  her  toes ; 
his  part  was  to  perch  on  a  low  tree-limb  and 
sing  to  her. 

The  Holmeses  did  not  frequent  the  Coxes, 
a  six-mile  drive  removed. 

Before  the  evening  was  half  over,  Nelly 
caught  sight  of  John-Hector  among  the 
guests.  Her  nerves  gave  a  little  leap;  she 
wanted  to  laugh  aloud,  while  feeling  fantasti- 
cally like  some  nimble  spotty-felled  game 
when  the  huntsman  is  near. 

The  tall  young  man  looked  impressive  this 
evening.  He,  so  careless  of  dress,  had 
60 


April's  Sowing 

dressed  with  complimentary  scrupulosity.  It 
interested  her  to  see  him  among  other  men ; 
to  measure  him  with  an  attempted  imper- 
sonal eye  against  them ;  to  constate  how 
near  impossible  it  would  be  to  make  him  look 
ridiculous  or  insignificant.  Some  idiosyn- 
crasy in  her  was  gratified  by  the  assurance 
that  no  one  could  divine  his  heart  from  his 
face.  He  appeared  self-possessed  and  indif- 
ferent, while  experiencing  transports,  as  she 
believed,  in  watching  the  pink  spot  she  made, 
and  his  opportunity  to  approach  her. 

She  made  it  difficult ;  she  talked  engross- 
ingly  to  this  one  and  that ;  and  while  she  did 
so,  grew  prettier  and  prettier,  as  if  a  rose  by 
choosing  could  intensify  its  sweetness. 

But  at  last  John-Hector  loomed  over  her; 
at  last  she  was  forced  to  look  up.  And 
then,  even  as  she  was  smiling,  she  saw  in  his 
face  a  look  of  such  glaring  gaiety,  stalking, 
uncompromising  bliss,  that  she  was  irritated. 
She  felt,  what  she  had  not  until  that  mo- 
ment, that  a  finger  had  been  laid  on  her  lib- 
61 


April's  Sowing 

erty.  She  felt  as  if  some  end  of  her  drap- 
eries or  of  her  hair  had  been  caught  among 
wheels  that  would  softly,  inexorably  gather  in 
all  of  her.  The  novel  happiness  he  inno- 
cently let  appear  in  his  eyes  as  they  dwelt  on 
the  rose-colored  vision  that  was  she,  seemed 
to  intimate  a  change  supposed  by  him  in 
their  relations.  And  what  change  could  it 
be  which  induced  this  apparent  beginning  of 
security  on  his  part  ?  The  idea  of  fetters 
was  laid  on  her,  and  that  inspired  a  frenzied 
need  to  wave  her  arms,  and  show  how  free 
they  were. 

The  foolish  bliss  did  not  long  endure  in 
John-Hector's  eyes.  They  grew  gloomy,  and 
then  fairly  angry.  He  left  her  side  abruptly, 
and  later  made  a  spectacle  of  himself,  as  it 
seemed  to  her,  by  hovering  near  with  a  face 
of  Night  while  she  openly  coquetted  with 
young  Cox. 

He    managed    to  waylay   her    toward  the 
evening's  end,  and  force  her  into  a  window- 
corner,  where  they  quarreled  bitterly. 
62 


April's  Sowing 

She  came  home  excited  beyond  any  ex- 
perience of  hers,  disgusted  with  the  entire 
world  and  all  life. 

Murrie  Jefferson  lingered  in  the  room, 
chatting  at  her  while  she  undressed ;  yea,  a 
long  while  after,  sitting  on  the  edge  of  the 
bed. 

"  Do  go,  dear  !  "  Nelly  begged  at  last ; 
"  do  get  to  bed  and  let  me  sleep." 

But  sleep  did  not  come  to  Nelly  with  the 
opportunity.  She  looked  for  something  to 
induce  artificial  unconsciousness  ;  but  Murrie 
had  carried  off  the  sulfonal — at  least  it  was 
gone.  She  set  a  lamp  beside  her  bed,  and  in 
despair  tried  to  read.  At  last  she  gave  her- 
self over  simply  and  heart-wholly  to  hating 
John-Hector.  The  boor — the  brute — the 
chump — the  conceited  donkey  !  (The  author 
grieves,  but  those  are  the  expressions  used  by 
Nelly.)  Where  on  earth  had  her  wits  been 
.vhen  she — was  it  possible  ? — had  allowed 
such  a  creature  to  imagine — She  rubbed 
her  sleeve  across  her  lips  and  made  a  sick- 
63 


April's  Sowing 

ened  face,  trying  to  shut  off  the  springs   of 
memory. 

But  vainly.  What  an  alluring,  shining, 
painted  bubble  it  had  been  !  She  could  have 
cried,  if  she  had  not  been  so  angry  still.  An 
idiotic  bubble  !  Whence  do  the  like  of  it 
arise  ?  One  ought  to  be  more  seriously 
warned  against  them ;  it  is  too  stupid  believ- 
ing in  them  even  for  a  moment.  But  then 
the  whole  situation  between  men  and  women 
is  frantically  stupid.  Well,  she  should  not 
be  troubled  with  John-Hector  thereafter  ;  so 
much  at  least  was  sure.  He  had  shown 
himself  in  his  true  colors.  At  the  same  time 
she  was  aware  of  having  forced  him  to  quar- 
rel. She  nowise  knew  in  what  manner  he 
could  have  avoided  her  wrath,  once  roused  at 
seeing  him  look  happy  as  only  one  should 
look  who  triumphs.  She  granted  that  she 
would  have  despised  him  if  he  had  not  re- 
volted at  her  treatment.  This  reflection, 
however,  did  not  soothe  her,  or  hinder  her 
resolution  never  willingly  to  see  him  again. 
64 


April's  Sowing 

Nor  would  she  ever  again  in  her  life  allow 
one  of  his  sex  to  come  within  six  feet  of 
her. 

And  upon  this  she  must  sleep.  She  could 
no  longer  endure  the  singular  ill-being  afflict- 
ing her,  as  if  some  vital  element  had  myste- 
riously been  withdrawn  from  her  blood.  She 
got  up ;  she  intended  to  go  to  Murrie  for  the 
powders,  and  to  take  half  a  dozen  adult 
doses.  The  disturbance  in  her  mind  had 
created  a  sympathetic  disturbance  in  her 
heart  •,  it  was  beating  and  burning  unpleas- 
antly. 

As  she  passed  the  open  window  she 
thought,  with  a  little  shock,  that  very  prob- 
ably John-Hector  was  under  it.  This  idea 
must  have  been  suggested  to  her  by  some 
sound  outside.  She  stood  still,  ready  to 
laugh. 

"  What  nonsense  !  "  she  reflected ;  u  he 
has  been  at  home  in  bed  these  hours  !  " 

She  crept  to  the  window  and  peered 
through  the  lace  curtain.  She  could  distin- 
65 


April's  Sowing 

guish,  under  a  tree,  the  pale  round  of  a  straw 
hat.  . 

"  Let  him  stand  there  !  "  she  said,  blood- 
thirstily. 

Instead  of  going  for  the  stupefying  drug, 
she  got  into  bed  again.  Owing,  perhaps,  to 
the  motion  of  getting  up,  the  long  inhalation 
of  cool  night  air,  the  nervous  quality  was 
gone  from  her  wakefulness.  She  could  have 
slept,  but  that  the  sense  of  some  one  outside 
in  the  discomfort  of  standing  in  the  dew  pre- 
vented her;  curiosity,  too,  and  vindictive 
amusement,  At  last  she  became  uneasy,  and 
still  more  uneasy. 

"  What  an  idiot  he  is !  "  she  said  impa- 
tiently. "  Why  doesn't  he  go  home  ?  " 

She  lay  a  little  longer,  listening ;  then,  with 
a  jump  reached  the  window,  and  leaning 
forth,  with  the  curtains  held  to  her  throat, 
sent  a  loud  whisper  toward  the  pale  disk : 
"  John-Hector  Holmes,  go  straight  home  !  " 

The  disk  moved,  came  nearer,  was  tilted 
and  foreshortened. 


April's  Sowing 

"  Nelly ! "  said  John-Hector  in  a  very  sub- 
dued voice.  "  Nelly  !  " 

"  Go  straight  home  !  " 

"  Yes,  I  will,  dear.  But  say  first  you 
aren't  mad  with  me.  Say  it's  all  right." 

"  Go  right  away,  John.  I  am  not  going 
to  have  any  discussion  with  you  at  this  hour, 
you  may  believe.  I  wish  you  to  go  home 
and  let  me  sleep  in  peace.  Good  night." 

"  Oh,  Nelly,  don't  be  mean  !  How  can 
I  go  ?  I  will  be  off  as  soon  as  you  have  said 
you  won't  save  up  this  evening  against  me. 
Upon  my  word,  I  don't  know  what  hap- 
pened, dear.  I  must  have  behaved  very 
badly,  I  know.  I  beg  your  pardon  !  But 
you  shouldn't  make  me  jealous  !  I  am  not 
accountable.  Really,  Nelly,  you  oughtn't 
to  suppose  I  could  stand  quietly  by  and 
see  you  flirt  as  you  were  doing  with  that 
dude." 

"  I  have  always,  so  far,  reserved  for  myself 
the  privilege  of  doing  exactly  as  I  pleased." 

"  Of  course,  you  can  do  exactly  as 
67 


April's  Sowing 

you  please.  But  if  you  only  knew  how  it 
feels  to  me  !  I  may  as  well  tell  you  that  I 
shall  always,  to  my  dying  day,  be  jealous. 
But  I  promise  not  to  make  scenes  about  it 
like  to-night.  Just  say  you  will  forget  it ! 
I  was  in  such  a  good  humor,  too.  I  don't 
see  how  it  all  happened.  I  was  over- 
joyed at  having  caught  up  with  you  at  last, 
after  chasing  you  these  days.  You  did  it  on 
purpose,  Nelly,  I  know.  Why,  dear  ?  " 

"  I  wish  you  a  very  good-night." 

"  Oh,  Nelly — no,  Nelly — please  don't  go ! 
Say  everything  is  as  before.  Do  !  " 

"I  have  very  distinctly  requested  you  to 
go  home." 

"I  won't.  I  am  going  to  stay  where  I 
am.  Why  should  I  go  to  bed  just  because  it 
is  a  certain  hour  and  others  have  gone  ?  I 
have  a  fancy  for  seeing  the  sunrise  from  this 
spot.  Oh,  dearest,  don't  be  hard — Nelly  !  " 

Nelly  had  left  the  window.     John-Hector 
whispered  as  loud  as  he  could,  and  this  prov- 
ing ineffectual,  raised  his  voice  a  very  little. 
68 


April's  Sowing 

Nelly  found  herself  forced,  by  the  fear  of 
his  being  heard  by  some  one  else,  to  return 
to  the  window. 

"  John-Hector  !  "  she  whispered,  indig- 
nantly, "  this  is  pretty  conduct !  " 

"  Darling  !  "  said  John-Hector,  with  the 
cringing  imploringness  of  a  child ;  "  don't 
make  me  be  bad.  It's  your  own  fault.  You 
have  only  to  say  it's  all  right,  and  I  will  go 
like  a  lamb.  I  simply  can't  go  and  have  you 
lying  there  thinking  over  my  bad  conduct, 
and  the  night  magnifying  all.  If  you  forgive 
me  before  sleeping,  it  will  be  as  if  it  had 
never  been.  What  can  I  do  to  make  you  ? 
Tell  me  yourself  what  to  do  !  " 

"  I  will  throw  something  at  you  directly." 

"  Do,  dear  !  I  will  catch  it.  Throw  me 
the  pink  flowers  you  wore.  You  did  look 
like  one  big  sweet  rose,  you  thorny  girl !  It 
was  a  pity  your  nightingale  sang  off  the 
key." 

"  Do  you  call  that  showing  a  proper  spirit 
of  penitence,  John-Hector  ?  " 
69 


April's  Sowing 

"Your  nightingale  had  a  remarkably  good 
ear.  As  long  as  we  both  heard  him,  what 
does  it  matter  how  I  qualify  his  sing- 
ing ?  Ah,  don't  be  adamant !  It  is  so  easy 
for  you  'to  torment  me,  it  oughtn't  to  seem 
worth  your  while.  Throw  me  the  flowers, 
darling,  if  you  have  sworn  not  to  say  you  are 
friends  with  me.  Throw  me  something, 
then,  as  a  sign,  and  I  will  go." 

Nelly,  after  a  moment,  pitched  at  him 
with  all  her  strength  a  large  French-English 
dictionary.  He  caught  it  easily,  with  a 
hushed  laugh,  and  kissed  it  audibly,  asking  in 
a  hollow  whisper,  "  Is  it  your  Bible  ?  " 

Nelly,  in  bed,  laughing  to  herself,  heard 
after  several  faintest  Nellies  nothing  more. 

She  composed  herself  luxuriously  to  sleep. 
She  said,  "  He  is  a  dear  boy,  after  all." 


70 


SHE  was  so  sure  of  nothing,  the 
next  day,  as  that  he  would  try  to  see 
her.      She  took  no  step  to  avoid  him. 
But,  against  all  rule  of  likelihood,  John- 


April's  Sowing 

Hector  did  not  appear.  She  saw  nothing  of 
him  for  several  days.  In  that  space  her  dis- 
position toward  him  changed  many  times. 
At  last — it  was  Nelly's  mental  exclamation 
— she  received  a  note  from  him.  He  was 
ready  to  leave  j  he  asked  permission  to  come 
and  bid  her  good-bye. 

Nelly  called  for  the  most  ravishing  raiment 
she  possessed.  Murrie  inquired  of  herself 
who  might  be  coming.  She  merely  did  not 
ask,  because  time  must  inevitably  show. 

When  John-Hector  arrived,  Murrie  was 
vicariously  disconcerted.  She  felt  that  friend- 
ship almost  demanded  that  she  should  catch 
and  bear  off  this  young  man,  surely  in  the 
way  to-night.  She  wondered  as  the  evening 
wore  on  what  had  become  of  the  other  caller, 
the  one  for  whom  preparation  had  been  made. 

Nelly  and  John-Hector  sat  in  her  parlor, 
youthful  feminine  dream  in  dove-color  and 
gold,  with  tall,  delicate,  painted  panels.  He 
had  put  on,  somewhat  eccentrically  for  this 
quiet  country  call,  evening  dress ;  a  triple 


April's  Sowing 

carnation  flowered  his  buttonhole.  Nelly 
and  he  looked  ready  to  start  for  a  party. 

They  talked  together  in  accordance  with 
the  civilized  splendor  of  their  clothes.  They 
were  formal  and  polite  toward  each  other,  as 
if  they  had  been  distinguished  persons,  and 
only  slightly  acquainted.  Miss  Jarvis  might 
have  been  within  ear-shot. 

The  several  doors  of  the  parlor  were  open. 
Murrie  came  in  once  or  twice  with  worried 
eyebrows,  and  joined  in  conversation  with  the 
pair.  But  not  for  long;  she  was  playing 
three-handed  euchre  with  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Brown,  who  considered  it  a  favor  to  be  let  off 
from  seeing  Nelly's  company. 

John-Hector  rose  and  appeared  to  be  look- 
ing for  something.  He  came  back  to  his 
seat  with  a  photograph-case.  He  turned  over 
the  contents ;  Nelly,  slightly  bending  toward 
him,  told  him  the  names  and  conditions  of 
the  photographed. 

"  Why  is  there  no  picture  of  you  ?  "  asked 
John-Hector. 

73 


April's  Sowing 

"  Oh,  there  are  quantities  of  them ;  but 
not  there.  I  don't  keep  myself  among  my 
friends.  Let  me  see/'  she  added,  with  a 
show  of  ingenuousness  so  perfect  that  it  may 
have  been  assumed.  "  I  think  there  is  one 
of  my  last  in  the  Japanese  box,  on  the  table ; 
if  not,  it  must  be  in  the  little  drawer." 

"  I  am  not  going  to  ask  for  it,"  said  John- 
Hector,  grinning  like  himself  of  a  working- 
day  ;  "  I  only  want  to  know  where  it  is." 

He  seemed  to  be  wearying  of  the  atmos- 
phere of  the  palely  sumptuous  room.  He  got 
up  several  times  to  look  out  at  the  window. 

"  How  lovely  it  is  outside ! "  he  exclaimed, 
with  simple  craft.  "How  much  one  loses 
by  staying  in  the  house.  Don't  you  think 
so  ?  I  wish  you  would  allow  me  to  carry 
the  sofa-cushions  on  to  the  piazza-steps.  It 
is  divine  out  there.  Aren't  you  fond  of 
nature,  Miss  Brown  ?  I  really  ought  to  have 
it  on  my  conscience  to  keep  you  indoors  on 
such  a  night.  Did  you  say  I  might  move 
the  cushions  ? " 

74 


April's  Sowing 

Nelly  said  nothing  in  assent  or  in  dissent, 
but  lazily  arose ;  and  when,  unforbidden,  he 
had  conveyed  the  pillows  to  the  moonlit  steps, 
made  no  real  difficulty  to  precede  him  through 
the  window-door,  and  let  herself  be  made 
comfortable  on  them. 

"  There  !  "  said  John-Hector  with  a  long 
breath,  taking  the  step  at  her  feet,  "  this  is 
better." 

Nelly  unthinkingly  let  out  a  long  breath 
too,  which  had  the  effect  of  an  echo. 

He  placed  himself  so  that  he  could  watch 
her  face. 

"  I  am  going  to  look  at  you  all  this  even- 
ing," he  said,  so  low  that  she  could  pretend 
not  to  hear,  "  because  I  shall  not  see  you  for 
such  a  long  time." 

They  spoke  more  freely  at  once  than 
within  under  the  listening  walls.  They 
spoke  of  the  long  adventure  he  was  starting 
upon.  They  discussed  homely  matters  of 
concern  to  him,  like  a  knightly  brother  advis- 
ing with  his  wise  young  sister.  He  was  perfect 
75 


April's  Sowing 

this  evening ;  humble,  intuitive,  unobtrusively 
tender,  treating  her  like  a  very  princess. 

She  wondered  a  little,  while  they  talked  in 
the  moonlight  that  turned  the  distant  city  of 
glass  into  a  white,  shimmering,  unearthly 
city,  at  the  flippancy  she  remembered  in  their 
talks  before,  her  slanginess,  his  bluntness. 
To-night  they  spoke  so  differently. 

It  came  home  to  her  by  one  first  little 
point  that  there  was  something  fateful  in 
these  moments,  something  final.  She  woke 
to  it  with  the  staitled  sense  of  having  over- 
slept, and  needing  now  to  haste  :  so  little 
time  left,  and  so  much  to  be  said — She  did 
not  know  what.  To-morrow  he  would  be 
gone ;  this  good,  habitual,  solid,  warm- 
blooded John-Hector  would  have  taken  on 
the  tragic  quality  of  being  absent,  which  is 
the  first  effect  of  being  dead — 

"  Let  us  get  up  and  walk,"  she  said  ab- 
ruptly. 

She  realized  that  he  was  realizing  too. 
She  wondered  how  it  felt  to  him,  and  of  a 
76 


April's  Sowing 

sudden  felt  curiously  unstrung  herself,  not 
sure  of  her  voice.  They  walked  at  random, 
uneasy,  conversation  dead  between  them. 
She  looked  with  preoccupied  lifted  brows  at 
the  moon,  and  he  with  a  preoccupied  frown  on 
the  ground.  As  they  came  to  the  end  of  a  walk 
and  she  was  turning,  John-Hector  said,  as  if 
bursting  through  an  oppressive  disguise  : 

"  Nelly,  I  am  going  away ! "  And  she 
found  him  kneeling,  saying  :  "  Make  me  all 
right  to  go,  dear.  Give  me  a  blessing  !  " 

It  did  not  seem  ridiculous,  because  they 
were  out  of  the  light,  and  no  one  saw  it  but 
herself. 

She  felt  confusedly  that  she  scarcely  knew 
how  a  blessing  should  be  given.  She  laid 
her  hands  on  his  head ;  the  feeling  of  it  de- 
votionally  bowed  under  her  palms  touched  her 
unaccountably  ;  a  climbing  sadness  threatened 
to  choke  her.  Impulsively  he  put  his  arms 
around  her  knees  and  pressed  his  face  against 
her.  She  caught  her  breath,  shaken  and  un- 
certain, then  merely  readjusted  her  balance. 
77  . 


April's  Sowing 

It  would  have  been  inane  to  scold  him  in 
this  last  minute,  when  so  much  time  must 
pass  before  he  could  show  improvement  from 
any  lesson  she  gave,  or  yet  repeat  the  offence. 
And  then — and  then  —  why  scold  ?  The 
touch  of  true  love  is  so  reverent.  Why  do 
violence  to  one's  proper  reason  to  fall  in 
with  laws  of  a  world  one  does  not  even  re- 
spect ?  Why  affect  a  repugnance  one  does 
not  feel  ?  And  then — and  then — this  was 
no  time  to  weigh  matters  ;  in  the  long  days 
ahead,  with  the  strong  bias  of  his  presence 
removed,  she  could  think  to  some  purpose, 
and  set  her  heart  scrupulously  in  order.  If 
she  were  cruel  in  such  a  moment,  she  might 
be  grieved  at  it  afterwards,  when  he  was 
gone  and  amends  were  impossible.  She 
placed  her  hands  on  his  hair  again,  unsoli- 
cited, and  warmly  pressed  the  blessing  down. 

"  Thank  you,  dearest,"  murmured  John- 
Hector.  They  resumed  their  walk  in  a  si- 
lence charged  with  large  indefinite  feeling. 

At  a  division  in  the  paths,  she  was  taking 
73 


April's  Sowing 

the  one  that  led  toward  the  house ;  John- 
Hector  apparently  not  seeing  this,  took  the 
other,  and  abstractedly  she  followed  his  lead. 
They  came  under  an  arching  trellis.  John- 
Hector  in  its  shadow  murmured  so  prayer- 
fully, "  Say  good-bye  to  me  !  "  that  it  did  not 
seem  in  nature  to  make  an  instantaneous 
brutal,  refusing  outcry ;  besides,  that  would 
at  once  have  created  a  situation ;  besides,  it 
seemed  to  her  that  she  must  have  known, 
when  she  accepted  this  path,  whither  it  led. 
She  thought,  one  brief  moment,  her  head 
held  with  respectful  firmness  against  a  broad- 
cloth shoulder,  how  comfortable  if  one  might 
at  the  same  time  as  retaining  all  the  prestige 
of  pride,  be  simple  and  natural  and  let  one's 

head  lie 

"  Let  me  go  !  "  she  exclaimed,  fretfully. 
And  he  murmured,  "  I  beg  your  pardon  !  " 
As  they  came  into  the  moonlight,  at  sev- 
eral  yards    distance    from    each    other,    she 
rested  with  a  confused  comfort  on  the  un- 
spoken pact  that  the  attitude  should  be  pre- 
79 


April's  Sowing 

served  between  them   of  her  severity  never 
having  relented. 

But  the  atmosphere  was  changed ;  there 
was  no  use  in  staying  out  further,  drawing 
out  longer  the  good-bye  moments.  She 
turned  homeward  unappealed  to. 

"  You  will  write  me,  won't  you  ?  "  said 
John-Hector,  as  they  entered  the  house. 
He  gave  to  the  interrogative  form  the  calm 
tone  of  statement. 

"  No,  indeed,"  quickly  replied  Nelly,  and 
turned  toward  him  in  the  yellow  lamplight, 
another  girl  entirely — a  girl  distinctly  in  a 
state  of  reaction,  taken  back  to  herself,  cold 
and  committed  to  nothing  by  their  embraces. 

"  Oh  ! "  cried  John-Hector,  in  soreness 
and  surprise. 

"  Certainly  not !  " 

John-Hector  began  teasing.  But  Nelly, 
tired  out,  stiffened  more  at  each  attack.  She 
only  yielded  to  the  point  of  saying,  when  at 
the  end  of  their  argument  she  saw  his  ab- 
surdly confounded  condition  : 
80 


April's  Sowing 

"  No  doubt  I  shall  see  your  sisters  some- 
times. They  will  be  in  communication  with 
you  and  inform  you  probably  of  anything  im- 
portant happening  in  Cloverfield.  Go  now, 
John-Hector.  Don't  you  see  ?  The  lamp 
is  going  out.  I  don't  want  to  ask  for  an- 
other. How  still  the  house  is  !  Listen  !  I 
believe  they  have,  every  soul  of  them,  gone 
to  bed.  It  must  be  frightfully  late.  Some 
one  just  out  of  sight  is  watching  and  listening 
for  you  to  go,  so  that  the  hall-light  can  be 
put  out  and  the  front  door  locked.  Doesn't 
it  make  you  nervous  ?  " 

Getting  himself  under  control,  he  took 
leave  of  her  ceremoniously  by  the  dying 
glimmer  of  the  lamp. 

Wearily  Nelly  climbed  the  stairs,  more 
conscious  than  of  any  other  emotion  oT  a  su- 
perficial vexation  at  the  circumstance  of  the 
lamp. 

"  I  must  really  instruct  Mary- Jane  to  look 
better  after  her  lamps  !  "  she  said. 


THE  first  days  of  John-Hector's  absence 
drew  themselves  out  to  a  surprising  length:  a 
sense  of  emptiness  accompanied  the  pleasant 
regained  sense  of  freedom.  John-Hector's 
presence  in  Cloverfield  had  been  latterly  a 
strain  on  the  nervous  sensibilities;  but  the 
removal  of  the  strain  was  not  succeeded  alto- 
gether by  well-being.  Nelly  found  herself  at 
loss  for  a  satisfactory  substitutional  occupa- 
tion. She  resisted  as  often  as  it  arose  a  desire 
to  walk  alone  and  meditate.  She  had  it  to 
struggle  with  every  few  moments. 


April's  Sowing 

A  letter  came  to  her  written  from  the  ship 
that  bore  John-Hector  to  Bremen.  He  wrote 
again  on  touching  land,  and  by  every  trans- 
atlantic mail  after  that,  for  several  weeks. 
He  thought  Nelly  could  not  have  meant  what 
she  said  ;  he  thought  she  could  be  softened. 
Nelly  melted  and  congealed  again  many  times, 
but  dismissed  at  last  a  vastest  inclination  to 
be  very  woman  and  reply.  Could  he  but 
know,  if  she  wrote,  how  much  the  worse  for 
him  !  She  must  be  free,  or — she  knew  her 
ways — she  would  repent,  and  her  struggle 
begin  at  once  to  disentangle  herself.  The 
sense  was  insufferable  to  her  of  a  future  defi- 
nitely entailed.  She  wished  him  as  well  to 
feel  tied  to  her  during  this  separation  by 
nothing  but  a  point  in  his  own  mind.  When 
he  was  grown  expectant  of  nothing,  perhaps 
— perhaps  she  would  send  him  something. 

The  parting  scene  between  them  was  in- 
sensibly altered  in  its  values  to  her  memory. 
The  beauty  of  the  night,  which  had  scarcely 
affected  her  at  all  at  the  time  of  it,  asserted 
83 


April's  Sowing 

its  poetic  importance  as  a  background ;  so 
that  she  could  say  in  retrospect  with  the  lov- 
ers from  Venice,  "  In  such  a  night — "  Their 
remembered  conversation,  weeded  by  a  nat- 
ural unconscious  selection,  was  worthy  in  its 
final  revision  of  being  laid  aside  in  the  spirit's 
pleasant  treasure-house,  with  dried  roses,  as  it 
were,  between  its  pages.  Remembrance  of 
the  constraints,  the  minute  mal-a-propos,  the 
uncertainties,  the  conflicts  of  mind,  that  had 
kept  that  last  interview  from  being  conscious 
of  itself  as  an  event  full  of  blessed  condi- 
tions, was  lost  in  remembrance  of  the  sincere 
love  that  had  undoubtedly  been  expressed  to 
her  in  its  course. 

She  was  not  well  acquainted  with  the 
Holmeses,  though  Dr.  Holmes  was  the  family 
physician,  and  two  of  the  girls  as  children  had 
been  schoolmates  of  hers,  and  her  mother 
knew  the  whole  family  well,  as  she  did  every 
one  in  Cloverfield.  Nelly  had  been  absent  for 
long  spaces  in  the  last  years ;  her  friends  had 
been  principally  made  in  New  York.  On 
84 


April's  Sowing 

reviewing  her  impressions  of  John-Hector's 
people,  she  resolved  with  belated  regret  that 
they  did  not  like  her.  Considering  more 
closely,  she  saw  that  what  she  laid  to  the 
Holmeses  in  general  was  justly  applicable  only 
to  Ethel  Holmes,  the  one  nearest  in  age  to 
John-Hector,  and  his  favorite.  Ethel  was 
quiet  and  studious ;  she  showed  in  her  face 
what  was  spoken  of  as  a  great  deal  of  char- 
acter. She  had  always  had  to  Nelly  an  effect 
of  looking  down  upon  her.  Sure  of  abun- 
dant appreciation  in  so  many  quarters,  Nelly 
had  passed  this  fact  light-heartedly  over. 
Now  her  thought  turned  to  Ethel,  as  if  the 
other  members  of  the  family  had  not  counted. 
She  did  not  wish  to  call,  quite ;  the  call 
might  prove  stiff  and  lead  to  a  simple  re- 
turned call,  or  it  might  be  thought  more  sig- 
nificant than  it  was — his  sisters  could  not  be 
totally  ignorant  of  John-Hector's  affairs ;  or 
yet,  Ethel  might,  characteristically,  on  hear- 
ing the  visitor  announced,  slip  out  and  leave 
the  boresome  social  duty  to  others. 
85 


April' s  Sowing 

Cloverfield  was  accustomed  to  the  sight  of 
Ethel  and  a  dog  walking  off  toward  the 
woods.  Nelly  had  a  yellow  cart  and  a  mild- 
mannered  horse  which  she  drove  in  person 
with  a  very  tall  whip.  She  turned  it  into 
the  autumn  woods ;  she  wandered  over  the 
fading  environs  of  Cloverfield.  She  lost  her 
way  several  times ;  but  one  day  she  found 
Ethel. 

Nelly  recognized  her  back;  she  knew  that 
the  girl  had  seen  her  and  was  trying  to  get 
away  unbespoken. 

"  Miss  Holmes  !  "  she  called  sweetly. 

Ethel  turned  and  waited  where  she  stood. 

Nelly,  as  she  drove  up  to  Ethel,  wore  the 
expression  of  one  who  is  blushing ;  she 
smiled  to  her,  and  looked  intentionally  pretty 
and  soft  and  engaging;  her  eyes  had  their 
sunny  quality. 

"  Do  get  in,  Miss  Holmes,"  she  said, 
"  and  let  me  drive  you." 

"  No,  I  thank  you,"  answered  Ethel ;  "  I 
walk  for  the  fun  or  it." 
86 


April's  Sowing 

She  looked  at  Nelly  defensively  from  under 
the  visor  of  a  boy's  cap.  She  had  John- 
Hector's  strongly  marked  eyebrows,  over 
colder,  darker  eyes  ;  her  nose  started  down- 
ward at  the  same  angle  as  her  brother's,  but 
its  bold  line  was  not  wholly  pleasing  in  a 
woman's  face  ;  her  smile,  like  his,  was  an  il- 
lumination ;  there  was  a  hint  of  sarcasm, 
however,  in  the  lines  it  made,  not  observable 
in  John-Hector's.  Nelly  watched  her  lips 
with  a  little  nondescript  feeling  at  seeing 
John-Hector's  strong  front  teeth  framed  in  a 
smile  untinged  with  any  allegiance  to  her. 

"  I  can  never  see,"  said  Nelly,  "  how  one 
can  walk  for  fun.  I  would  never  take  a 
step  if  I  could  help  it ;  "  and  she  was  aware 
of  Ethel's  contempt.  "  I  know,  of  course, 
what  a  bad  thing  that  is,"  she  added;  "  I  own 
that  no  one  so  lazy  should  be  allowed  to  en- 
cumber the  earth.  I  believe  /  am  that 
American  who  was  born  tired  ! — Aren't  the 
woods  lovely  at  this  season  ?  " 

She  would  not  let  Ethel  go,  though  she 
87 


April's  Sowing 

more  than  suspected  her  impatience.  She 
detained  her  with  one  trivial  remark  after 
another,  uncomfortably  aware  that  with  the 
sense  of  disadvantage  weighing  upon  her,  she 
could  not  hope  to  talk  like  anything  but  a 
fool. 

At  the  end  of  ten  minutes,  she  said,  "  But 
I  must  not  keep  you  standing  in  the  road.  I 
have  kept  you  so  long — Miss  Holmes,  do  get 
in  and  let  me  drive  you  !  "  And,  to  Nelly's 
surprise,  with  this  request  a  second  time  ut- 
tered, Ethel  complied. 

Instantly,  all  was  different  with  Nelly ; 
instantly,  she  could  be  her  proper  self,  and 
talk  cosily,  and  practice  her  little  mode  of 
being  charming. 

Before  the  end  of  their  drive,  Nelly  was 
sure  her  companion  said  to  herself,  "  She  is 
different  from  my  idea  of  her.  She  is  a  quite 
possible  person  ! "  And  that  modest  praise 
elated  her.  For  Nelly  knew  how  difficult  it 
was  for  a  girl  of  her  kind  to  make  the  con- 
quest of  a  girl  of  Ethel's  kind,  where  they  had 


April's  Sowing 

scarcely  an  idea  in  common  ;  and  she  into 
the  bargain  had  probably  in  its  rounded  per- 
fection every  quality  and  condition  that  Ethel 
despised.  Ethel,  for  one  instance,  cared 
enormously  and  discriminatingly  for  books ; 
Nelly,  sickly  in  her  growing  days,  with  the 
freedom  to  do  much  as  she  chose  in  the  mat- 
ter of  her  education  as  in  every  other  matter, 
had  learned  just  as  little  as  a  person  can  and 
go  to  school.  It  may  be  owned  that  she  had 
never  felt  her  lack  of  knowledge  of  the 
printed  word  an  appreciable  disadvantage  to 
her.  She  was  blessed  with  a  pretty  instinct 
for  the  moment  when  it  will  be  best  to  keep 
still.  With  this,  and  a  sensitized  intelli- 
gence for  all  the  information  running  wild,  a 
marked  gift  for  taking  her  tone  from  the 
company  she  was  in,  and,  to  be  candid,  an 
alloy  of  fine,  fine  brass,  she  would  not  have 
shrunken  from  mingling  in  any  society ;  she 
would  have  engaged  to  make  a  creditable  fig- 
ure at  royal  courts.  But  to  meet  at  such 
close  range  a  girl  like  Ethel,  with  those  de- 
89 


April's  Sowing 

liberative  calm  eyes,  a  girl  who  knew  all 
about  one  beforehand,  and  whom  one  was 
over-eager  to  impress  happily,  was  another 
matter.  If  Ethel  had  been  a  young  man, 
her  eyes  might  have  been  indefinitely  more 
critical,  yet  Nelly  would  not  have  been  dis- 
composed by  them.  Nelly  felt  herself  fitted 
by  nature  to  deal  effectively  with  man  ;  she 
had  the  inborn  confidence  that  goes  with  a 
great  gift.  Just  in  proportion  as  her  assur- 
ance with  man  was  great,  was  great  her 
secret  diffidence  with  the  women  she  cared 
to  please. 

It  was  a  bewildering  consideration  to  her 
that  Ethel,  if  she  were  given  to  contemplate 
an  alliance  between  her  brother  and  the  girl 
beside  her,  would  hold  it  a  mismatch  and  a 
misfortune  for  him.  And  yet,  thought 
Nelly,  urging  herself  on  to  hope  for  a  better- 
ing of  this  situation,  it  could  not  be  possible 
to  know  her  really  well  and  withhold  from 
her  all  liking  and  good  opinion ;  one  must 
give  her  credit  for  certain  poor  little  virtues, 
9° 


April's  Sowing 

such  as  well-meaningness  and  natural  good 
sense. 

When  she  perceived  in  Ethel  toward  the 
end  of  their  drive  an  increase  of  friendliness, 
she  laid  it  to  her  intelligent  companion's  ap- 
prehension of  those  humble  hidden  virtues. 

They  did  not  once  refer  to  John-Hector 
during  their  drive ;  yet  both  were  conscious 
of  him  as  the  real  reason  for  the  relation 
springing  up  between  them.  In  the  better 
acquaintance  following,  that  was  lost  sight  of 
in  a  sincere,  incongruous  personal  liking  for 
each  other,  the  principal  feature  of  which 
was  a  capacity  to  laugh  when  they  were 
together  at  almost  anything.  They  required 
no  other  ground  than  a  shared  perception  of 
the  funny  side  of  things  to  get  along  beauti- 
fully, as  Nelly  expressed  it,  in  reply  to  the 
jealously-inclined  Murrie's  inquiry,  "What 
on  earth  do  you  see  in  that  girl  ? " 

Ethel  came  to  Nelly's  house,  and  sat  in  a 
hammock  with  her,  eating  chocolates,  just 
like  a  girl  not  cursed  with  mind ;  and  drove 
91 


April 's  Sowing 

in  her  yellow  cart,  and  went  home  grateful 
with  armfuls  of  hot-house  flowers.  Nelly 
went  to  her  house,  and  often,  waiting  in  the 
sitting-room  for  some  one  to  come  down, 
had  leisure  to  examine  photographs  of  John- 
Hector  at  various  ages ;  one  of  him,  in  a 
broad  collar,  with  a  funny  little  look  of  alarm 
at  the  camera,  and  the  rudiments  only  of  his 
Hectorian  nose,  touched  her  heart  like  the 
sight  of  a  kitten. 


the     year    declined.       Mrs. 
Jefferson     began      referring 
with  a  sigh  to  the  necessity  of  taking  her 
departure.      The   cheerful   little  woman 
had  private  griefs:  a  vague  never-to-be- 
mentioned  husband,  two  grown-up  daugh- 
ters  earning   obscure   livings   at   a   distance; 
and,  to  darken  the  present  by  contrast,  the 
93 


April's  Sowing 

remembrance  of  past  affluence.  Mrs.  Jeffer- 
son did  not  often  indulge  herself  in  speaking 
of  Emma  and  Adela  and  F.  W.,  nor  yet 
of  her  better  days.  One  thought  of  her 
generally  as  a  childless  widow,  amiable  to  a 
fault  and  excellent ;  open,  one  knew,  though 
whence  the  impression  could  scarcely  be  told, 
to  invitations  to  sojourn  in  agreeable  houses, 
where,  while  never  losing  the  dignity  of  guest, 
she  would  lighten  the  burden  of  life  to  her 
hostess  by  every  imaginable  accommodation ; 
from  arranging  the  flowers,  if  there  were  doubt 
of  the  servant's  taste,  and  washing  the  best 
china,  if  there  were  doubt  of  her  dexterity, 
to  telling  her  friend's  fortune  by  card,  and 
talking  her  to  sleep. 

"What  makes  you  go  ? "  Nelly  asked,  when 
Murrie  had  been  inquiring  about  trains. 

"What  makes  me?"  said  Murrie,  a  little 
taken  aback,  and  thereupon  a  little  expec- 
tant. "  You  will  be  going  yourself  in  a  few 
days." 

"  In  a  few  days,  but  that's  not  yet.  Wait 
94 


April's  Sowing 

to  go  till  I  go,  Murrie.  It  will  be  lonesome 
here  without  you." 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Brown  awoke  presently  to 
the  fact  that  Nelly  was  staying  with  them 
long  after  her  planned  departure.  She  had 
no  reason  to  give  beyond  repugnance  to  the 
small  exertion  necessary  to  make  ready  and 
leave.  As  she  seemed  to  her  mother  unusu- 
ally pensive  in  these  days,  the  sweet  lady  was 
constantly  asking  why  she  did  not  go  where 
she  would  be  sure  to  have  a  good  time :  urg- 
ing her  not  to  be  guilty  of  the  incivility  of 
keeping  her  friends,  the  Taylors,  waiting. 

"  Don't  you  miss  me  at  all,  Ma  ?  "  Nelly 
asked  one  day,  between  laughing  and,  it 
almost  seemed,  crying. 

"  Miss  you,  ladybird  ?  Now,  what  a  thing 
to  ask  !  Of  course  we  miss  you,  every  min- 
ute of  the  time.  You  don't  suppose  anything 
in  the  world  could  take  your  place  ?  But  you 
aren't  going  far,  and  we  know  you're  going 
where  you'll  find  it  pleasant  and  it'll  be  good 
for  you.  Cloverfield  is  no  right  place  for  you 
95 


April's  Sowing 

all  the  year  round.  You  must  go  out  and 
see  something  of  life  while  you're  young. 
There's  time  enough  ahead  for  you  to  settle 
down  and  stay  at  home.  It  isn't  as  if  we 
were  old  folks,  or  ailing,  and  afraid  to  have 
you  go  out  of  our  sight  for  fear  we  mightn't 
see  you  back  again.  We're  busy  from  week's 
end  to  week's  end,  and  we've  got  each  other 
to  depend  upon.  And  we  do  enjoy  getting 
your  letters.  Make  them  just  as  long  as  you 
can  find  time  to,  Posy ;  it's  good  practice  for 
you.  I  always  did  respect  any  one  that  could 
write  a  good  letter.  Your  father  does  enjoy 
hearing  of  your  doings,  though  it's  not  his  way 
to  say  much  about  it.  And  I  like  to  think 
you're  thoughtful  of  your  father."  ("  Always 
mind  your  mother ! "  had  been  the  burden 
ever  of  her  father's  simple  instructions.) 

Mrs.  Brown  after  this  looked  with  confi- 
dence for  Nelly's  preparations  to  leave;  and 
seeing  none,  became  somewhat  concerned. 
Waking  in  the  small  hours  of  the  night,  she 
shook  her  husband  to  talk  it  over  with  him. 
96 


April's  Sowing 

They  watched  Nelly,  to  discover  if  any- 
thing were  the  matter.  In  their  uncertainty, 
they  let  their  anxious  fondness  appear  so 
plainly  that  Nelly's  compunctious  heart  went 
out  to  meet  it  with  demonstrations  more  tender 
and  frequent  than  her  wont.  She  coaxed 
her  father  to  show  her  his  plants,  and  tell 
her  the  whole  long  story  again  of  the  Great 
War  and  his  part  in  it.  She  helped  to 
dress  dolls  for  the  Sunday-school  Christmas 
tree ;  and  she  bestowed  great  attention  on 
the  winter  wardrobe  of  her  mother,  of 
whose  good  looks  she  was  proud,  and  to 
obtain  becoming  effects  for  whom  she  ex- 
perimented with  as  much  untiring  solicitude 
as  for  herself. 

While  she  was  making  her  mother's  hair 
into  plump  puffs,  there  returned  to  her  mind, 
curiously  sensitive  at  the  moment  to  influ- 
ences of  a  certain  order,  days  in  a  rough 
farmhouse,  her  earliest  remembrance,  where, 
whatsoever  the  stress  of  household  work,  this 
mother  had  every  morning  taken  time  to 
H  97 


April's  Sowing 

arrange  her  little  daughter's  hair  in  decorous 
curls,  smoothed  round  and  round  her  wet 
finger.  It  certainly  was  no  more  than  grace- 
ful in  that  daughter  now  to  lend  her  best  care 
to  the  ordering  of  these  dear  tresses.  In 
the  same  strain  of  thought  Nelly  recalled  how 
in  that  remote  farmhouse  she  had  used  to  take 
rides  on  Pa's  long  boot,  from  which  he  scraped 
off  the  earth  when  he  came  in  from  the  fields. 
No  horse  in  the  stable  now  was  as  untiring 
and  good-natured  as  that  hack  of  her  infancy. 
Nelly  remembered  in  some  childish  illness 
of  her  own  —  she  had  been  delicate  always 
—  this  mother  once  impatiently  adjuring 
that  father  not  to  go  about  the  house  look- 
ing so  like  a  funeral !  Of  course  that  was 
the  way  the  dear  would  have  gone  about 
looking  :  she  saw  him  !  It  was  an  old  grief 
of  which  Nelly  hardly  ever  took  account, 
that  the  kindly  pair  had  lost  several  beloved 
children  before  her  own  birth.  She  had  come 
into  the  inheritance  of  a  great  accumulation 
of  affection.  She  took  account  of  it  now, 
98 


April's  Sowing 

and  was  oppressed.  As  she  reflected  on  her 
darling  Pa's  attributes,  it  seemed  to  Nelly  a 
providence  especially  thoughtful  of  her  that 
had  practiced  the  good  joke  of  sending  him 
the  money.  Gentle  David  Brown  had  never 
made  a  bargain  that  the  rich  intestate  deceased 
from  whom  he  inherited  would  have  called 
anything  but  a  fool's. 

The  remorseful  consciousness  of  a  cruelty 
in  the  dim  background  of  her  mind,  to  be 
practiced  on  father  and  mother,  brought 
the  thought  of  their  dearness  very  close. 
Their  faces  smote  her.  Mingling  with 
people  who,  as  she  could  not  help  knowing, 
would  have  had  smiles  for  her  parents'  plain 
ways,  had  always  had  the  effect  of  making 
her,  if  anything,  honor  them  more.  Decid- 
ing that  she  left  all  question  of  heart  out  of 
the  matter,  she  attributed  her  recognition  of 
their  title  to  homage  to  the  sound  sense  she 
hoped  she  inherited  from  them.  She  tried 
sometimes  to  imagine  herself  a  stranger  look- 
ing at  them :  They  were  two  beautiful 
99 


April's  Sowing 

human  beings ;  country-bred,  indeed,  not 
widely  cultivated,  but  with  that  complete 
refinement  in  their  lineaments  that  comes 
of  life-long  discriminating  between  right  and 
wrong,  and  choosing  right. 

No,  it  was  not  possible  to  grieve  two  such 
out  of  hand ;  the  alternative  apparently  was 
to  ponder  the  intention  that  must  hurt  them 
till  familiarity  robbed  it  of  consequence,  and 
to  deal  the  stroke  with  very  slow  deliberation. 

A  letter  came  to  Nelly  from  Maud  Taylor, 
hurrying  her.  She  kept  it  a  secret,  uneasy 
on  her  heart,  and  lingered  in  Cloverfield, 
unaccountably,  purposelessly,  as  it  seemed, 
through  the  monotonous  late  autumn  days. 
Then  suddenly,  when  Nelly  would  have  said 
that  not  a  change  the  size  of  a  man's  hand 
was  to  be  discerned  in  the  prospect,  came  a 
change  full  great  in  the  atmosphere  of  the 
house;  and  Nelly,  apprehending  in  it  some 
secret  value  to  herself,  watched  its  develop- 
ments narrowly  :  feeling,  while  all  attention 
for  a  moment  was  diverted  from  her,  a 


April's  Sowing 

hope  which  she  had  made  a  conscientious 
point  of  nipping,  revive,  and  bourgeon  newly. 

The  poor  Jones  baby,  whose  mother,  spite 
of  all  earthly  drops,  had  succumbed,  was 
brought  into  the  Brown  family  to  be  reared. 
Nelly  was  touched  with  wonder  to  see  the 
happy  passion  with  which  her  mother,  throw- 
ing off  twenty  years,  entered  into  the  con- 
cern for  the  temperature  of  milk  and  water 
and  little  flannel  bands.  The  nieces  estab- 
lished themselves  in  turns,  and  presently  in 
a  force  of  two,  and  not  long  after  in  a  body, 
in  the  Brown  house,  to  help  out  Aunt  Han- 
nah, for  not  one  of  the  old-fashioned  hearts 
could  abide  the  thought  of  a  hired  nurse. 

Nelly,  pressed,  accepted  the  baby  from 
her  mother's  hands,  uncertain  for  one  nerv- 
ous moment  whether  what  she  really  wanted 
was  to  squeeze  and  kiss  him,  or  to  push  him 
away  in  inexpressible  disgust.  Pending  clear- 
ness on  this  point,  she  mechanically  drew 
her  lip,  as  she  had  seen  other  women  do, 
across  the  warm  downy  head,  softer  than 
101 


April's  Sowing 

anything  she  had  ever  felt,  smelling  engag- 
ingly of  rice-powder.  On  the  instant,  some- 
thing yielded  inside  of  her  ;  she  gave  a  fond 
tickled  laugh,  and  burst  into  gibbering  baby- 
talk,  just  like  the  rest,  of  whose  intelligence 
she  had  not  been  thinking  well. 

"  There  is  one  house  in  Cloverfield  pro- 
vided with  work  and  entertainment  for  some 
time  to  come,"  she  said,  returning  the  breath- 
ing bundle  to  her  mother. 

When  next  her  mother  asked  how  soon 
she  thought  of  starting  on  her  visit,  she  said, 
as  if  it  had  not  been  a  surprising  announce- 
ment, "  I  don't  think  I  shall  go  at  all.  I 
have  changed  my  mind." 

It  was  on  a  Sunday  evening.  On  Sunday 
evenings  it  was  one  of  the  household  pleasures 
to  have  a  "  sing."  Nelly,  regularly  invited 
by  her  mother,  condescended  to  play  hymns 
on  the  parlor-organ  and  start  the  singing, 
dropping  out  of  it  as  soon  as  the  voices  of 
the  others  rose  in  sufficient  volume.  She 
did  not  pretend  to  play  or  sing,  she  freely 


102 


April's  Sowing 

said,  and  said  it  not  without  propriety ;  her 
fingers  stumbled,  her  voice  was  waver- 
ing and  tentative.  Mrs.  Jefferson,  in  her 
younger  days  an  accomplished  pianist,  always 
offered  to  lead  the  exercises ;  but  Mrs. 
Brown  seemed  to  prefer  the  sight  of  Nelly 
on  the  music-stool,  and  Nelly,  after  a 
sigh,  lent  herself  usually  with  sufficient  good 
grace. 

She  had  just  risen  from  the  organ  on  this 
occasion,  at  the  end  of  "  Naomi,"  and  taken  a 
cricket  near  her  mother's  chair.  Her  remark 
was  followed  by  profound  silence.  She  knew 
that  everybody  was  looking  at  her  in  aston- 
ishment and  inquiry,  waiting  for  an  explana- 
tion. Abashed,  she  laid  her  cheek  against 
her  mother's  knee,  and  said,  half  laughing, 
"  I  don't  want  to  go  to  New  York,  and  gad 
and  dance  and  frivol,  when  I  can't  play  a 
simple  little  psalm-tune  straight." 

"  Oh,  is  that  what  you  mean,  child  !  I 
thought  you  must  be  joking.  Now,  I  thought 
you  played  real  good,  with  real  good  feeling, 
103 


April's  Sowing 

Posy.  I  love  to  hear  you,  and  I  wish  you'd 
do  it  oftener." 

"  Oh,  Ma,  you  don't  know,  dear !  You 
don't  see  plain  when  you're  looking  at  me. 
It's  cruel  to  undeceive  you.  Your  precious 
Nelly  is  one  big  fool.  And  she  will  go  to 
New  York,  and  waste  her  time  with  all  sorts 
of  vanities,  and  be  a  fool  to  the  end  !  " 

"Now,  Posy!  I'm  not  going  to  let  you 
talk  like  that.  With  all  the  schooling  you've 
had,  in  New  York  and  Cloverfield  too ! 
What  you  need  now  is  just  finishing  off 
with  knowledge  of  life,  and  that  comes  of 
seeing  the  world,  my  dear.  And  you've 
got  as  good  opportunities  as  ever  girl  had. 
Flow  will  it  improve  you,  I  should  like  to 
know,  to  stay  right  here  in  Cloverfield  ? " 

"  I  don't  want  to  stay  in  Cloverfield ! " 
said  Nelly,  rubbing  her  enkindled  cheek 
against  her  mother. 

There  was  another  silence.  Nelly,  with- 
out looking,  felt  all  listening  intently. 

"  I  want  to  go  to  Germany  !  "  she  said,  in 
104 


April's  Sowing 

a  conscious,  coaxing  tone,  cuddling  up  to  her 
mother.  "  I  want  to  go  with  Murrie,  and 
devote  myself  to  the  improvement  of  my 
poor  little  mind.  I  want  to  be  able  to  play 
1  Coronation  '  with  variations,  Ma.  I  want 
to  play  the  l  Mocking-Bird,'  offhand,  like 
the  deacon's  wife  whenever  she's  asked. 
Shouldn't  you  be  proud  of  me  ?  I  guess 
you  would,  you  and  Pa  !  I  swear  to  you 
your  girl  is  a  dunce  from  way  back !  I  am 
just  finding  it  out,  and  I  want  to  remedy  it 
while  it's  a  possible  thing.  For  the  brain 
gets  tough,  you  know,  as  we  grow  older. 
Let  me  go  to  Germany  with  Murrie,  who 
went  there  herself  to  study  when  she  was  a 
girl,  and  knows  all  about  their  ways,  and 
will  take  such  good  care  of  me,  won't  you, 
Murrie  ?  Say  you  will,  Ma  !  Say  you  will, 
Pa!" 

"  Well,  I  declare !  "  sighed  Mrs.  Brown. 
It  filled  her  with  a  sort  of  awe,  this  contem- 
plation of  Nelly  in  the  mood  of  thinking  she 
was  not  good  enough  as  she  was.     All  pres- 
105 


April's  Sowing 

ent  were  impressed ;  Mrs.  Jefferson  only  a 
little  less  than  the  others,  and  in  a  different 
kind.  What  impressed  her  was  not  so  much 
that  Nelly  should  think  herself  totally  lacking 
in  accomplishments,  as  that  the  world-loving 
girl,  prizing  these,  as  she  must,  at  no  more 
than  their  worth,  should  be  willing  to  forego 
the  exceptional  opportunities  of  her  New- 
York  visit,  for  the  sake  of  acquiring  some 
share  of  them.  Mrs.  Jefferson  inquired  of 
her  knowledge  of  Nelly  the  meaning  of  this 
phase ;  it  seemed  less  mature  than  her  other 
ideas.  But  she  was  so  interested  in  the  out- 
come, that  she  did  not  question  at  any 
length.  Her  heart  had  given  a  frolic  leap ; 
rosy  visions  crowded  upon  her. 

The  longer  Mrs.  Brown,  during  that  night 
between  Sunday  and  Monday,  thought  the 
matter  over,  the  more  admirable  did  it  seem 
to  her  in  her  girl  to  desire  to  set  aside  worldly 
pleasure  a  while  in  an  interest  that  might  be 
called  spiritual.  Her  brain,  the  proud  parent 
knew,  was  excellently  well  furnished  al- 
106 


April's  Sowing 

ready ;  the  more  of  an  exceptional,  a  su- 
perfine nature  to  thirst  for  still  higher 
attainment. 

Mrs.  Brown  talked  of  it  with  David,  in 
the  dark.  At  last  she  felt  grateful  to  God 
in  the  matter,  and  did  her  best  to  make  David 
share  her  sentiment. 

"  Posy  has  got  a  notion  to  go  to  Germany 
and  study  music  and  what  not.  She  can't  be 
satisfied  that  she  has  more  than  acquirements 
enough  now  to  get  through  the  world  with ; 
and  if  that  is  the  case,  nothing  shall  stand 
in  her  way  ! "  Mrs.  Brown  said  this  to  Dr. 
Holmes,  who  was  prescribing  for  Baby 
Jones. 

In  the  afternoon  Ethel  Holmes  came  to 
see  Nelly.  She  wore  a  constrained,  not 
cordial,  expression. 

"  I  hear  you  are  going  to  Germany  !  "  she 
said  at  once. 

"  Yes !  "  said  Nelly  j  "  to  study  !  Imagine 
me  studying,  Ethel !  I  didn't  say  to  learn 
fancy  dances ;  I  said  to  study  —  hard  —  did 
107 


April's  Sowing 

you  understand  me  ?     Isn't  it  like  a  change 
of  heart  ?     Isn't  it  good  of  them  to  let  me 
go  ?     I  wish  that  I  didn't  have  to  leave  you 
behind,  Ethel !  "  and  she  embraced  her. 
"  Oh,  dear  !  "  cried  Ethel,  emphatically. 
"  What  is  it  ?  "  asked  Nelly,  after  a  mo- 
ment, disconcerted   at   the   unresponsiveness 
of  the  surface  she  had  kissed. 

"  I  wish  you  weren't  going,  that  is  all !  " 
"  Why,  Ethel,  what's  the  matter  ?  " 
"  I  wouldn't  give  much  for  all  the  work 
John-Hector  is  likely  to  do  when  he  knows 
that  you  are  in  the  same  country,  that  is  cer- 
tain.    And  he  has  been  doing  so  well,  and 
father  has  —  we   have  all  —  felt  so  encour- 
aged.    He  had  got  into  a  bad  groove  here. 
It  seemed  such  a  point  gained  when  he  went 
over  there,  away  from  every  one  he  knew, 
where  he  could  start  fair  and  square.     One 
can  begin  all  over  in  a  new  place.     But  if 
you  go   there,  it  doesn't  take  a  prophet  to 
foretell  that  he  won't   stick  to  his  work." 
"  My  dear,  why  should  you  think  that  ?  " 
108 


April's  Sowing 

"  Oh,  Nelly,  you  understand  me  perfectly. 
Let's  not  pretend  !  You  know  he  was  head 
over  heels  in  love  with  you.  To  one  know- 
ing him  as  I  do,  it  showed  all  over  him, 

O  '  * 

plain  as  a  rash." 

"  No  doubt,"  said  Nelly,  rather  distantly, 
and  lifted  her  chin  part  of  a  degree ;  "  you 
know  him  much  better  than  I  do.  You 
must  know,  with  the  rest,  that  I  am  not  in 
correspondence  with  him,  and  that  unless 
you  or  your  sisters  write  it  to  him  your- 
selves, he  will  not  be  in  the  least  likely  to 
know  that  I  am  not  in  New  York.  I  had 
very  much  rather  he  did  not,  in  fact.  I 
understand  perfectly  the  importance  of  his 
not  being  diverted.  If  it  seems  to  you  of 
sufficient  consequence,  you  can  in  writing 
continue  giving  him  news  of  me  just  as  if 
I  were  here,  such  news  as  has  nothing  to 
do  with  one's  whereabouts ;  for  I  will  write 
you,  Ethel  dear,  of  course.  There  is  not 
the  slightest  chance  of  our  coming  upon 
each  other,  you  know.  I  am  going  to  a 
109 


April' s  Sowing 

quite  different  part  of  Europe.  Dresden 
is  ever  so  far  from  Vienna.  And  Mrs. 
Jefferson  and  I  are  going  to  live  very  quietly, 
and  work;  I  shan't  want  to  be  diverted 
myself  any  more  than  you  want  him  to  be, 
I  can  assure  you.  And  very  few  will  know 
where  I  have  gone.  All  that  most  will 
know  is  that  I  am  not  in  New  York." 

"  Well,"  laughed  Ethel,  still  not  genially, 
"  I  can't  prevent  your  going,  that  is  certain  !  " 

"  And  you  wouldn't  want  to  if  you 
could ! "  said  Nelly,  "  knowing  for  a  cer- 
tainty, from  what  I  have  just  said,  that 
your  precious  brother  will  be  no  more 
affected  by  it  than  by  a  humming-bird 
going  south !  I  wish  though  that  it  had 
turned  out,  when  you  were  so  aggrieved, 
that  your  regret  at  my  going  was  because 
you  would  miss  me  yourself!  " 

"  Oh,  I  know  that  I  am  horrid !  But 
you  seem  unable  to  understand  how  we  feel 
about  that  miserable  boy.  I  hadn't  thought 
it  even  necessary  to  tell  you  how  much  I 


April's  Sowing 

shall    miss    you,    you   frightful    little     hum- 
bug!" 

"  That's  right !  Call  me  names  !  Abuse 
me !  It  makes  me  feel  you're  friends  with 
me.  Come  in  here,  and  I  will  treat  you  to 
my  show-piece  on  the  piano.  You  must  pre- 
serve it  in  your  mind  as  4  Before  Using,'  and 
have  it  to  compare  with  my  performance 
when  I  get  back,  'After  Using.'  Take  a 
long,  lingering  look,  Ethel,  at  your  simple 
Nelly.  When  you  see  her  again  she  may 
be  unfit  to  speak  to  from  majestic  pride  and 
vainglory." 


NELLY,  waking  not  many  days  after  in  the 
dark  of  a  winter  dawn,  felt  her  bed  quiver 
and  creak,  and  heard  on  every  side  thumping 


April's  Solving 

and  shuffling  that  for  a  second  she  could  not 
explain.  Then  she  caught  sight  of  a  faint 
gray  moon  but  little  above  the  horizon,  and 
saw  very  dimly,  at  her  bedside,  masses  of 
gray  flowers  heaped  in  a  wash-bowl. 

"  Murric,  are  you  awake  ?  "  she  whispered. 

A  voice  from  overhead,  husky  and  sleepy, 
but  amiable  as  at  high  noon,  replied,  "Yes, 
dear.  Do  the  sounds  disturb  you  ?  They 
are  swabbing  the  deck.  Doesn't  it  seem, 
when  you  hear  the  water  swishing  so  plainly, 
that  you  must  do  something  about  it  or  you'll 
get  wet !  " 

"Are  we  off?" 

"  We  must  be.  They  said  five.  It's 
near  day." 

"  Poor  Pa  is  sound  asleep  in  his  bed  at  the 
Waldorf.  Poor  Pa !  I  am  glad  he  can't 
watch  us  grow  little  and  go  out.  I  am  glad 
too  that  I  can't  watch  him  watching  us.  It 
is  a  mercy  one  can  come  on  board  the  night 
before  like  this  and  get  off  unbeknownst. 
Poor  Pa  !  "  she  repeated,  with  an  oppressed 
i  113 


April's  Sowing 

bosom ;  "  and  Ma  too,  sound  asleep  in  her 
bed,  away  off  at  Cloverfield,  her  big  four-post 
bed.  No.  Ma  isn't  asleep.  She's  lying 
awake  in  the  dark  and  comforting  herself  with 
the  supposition  that  we  two  are  sound  asleep. 
Murrie,  I  don't  see  how  I  could  ever  do  it ! 
To  think  of  it :  I  couldn't  get  back  home  in 
less  than  two  weeks  now,  if  everything  in 
my  whole  life  depended  upon  it ! " 

"  My  child,  no  more  could  I.  Let's  not 
look  at  it  like  that.  Fix  your  thoughts  firmly 
on  the  bright  side  of  the  situation.  We  are 
going  off  just  for  the  fun  of  it,  aren't  we  ? 
We  mustn't  sit  down  at  the  very  start  to  think. 
We  are  going  to  have  such  a  good  time  ! 
Wasn't  it  nice  of  the  Roderick  Courtenays  to 
come  all  the  way  down  to  that  out-of-the- 
world  wharf  to  see  us  on  board  ?  Who  do 
you  suppose  sent  the  American  Beauties  ? 
The  messenger-boy  had  evidently  lost  the 
card.  Nobody  could  be  so  benighted  as  not 
to  send  one." 

"  Murrie,  do  you  feel  at  all  queer  ? " 
114 


April's  Sowing 

"  Not  at  all.  My  dear,  don't  tell  me  that 
you  do !  Not  so  soon  as  this !  Come ! 
There's  not  a  bit  of  motion  yet !  What  do 
you  feel  ? " 

"Murrie,  I  shall  not  try  to  describe  my 
sensations.  I  hope  with  you  that  they  point 
to  nothing.  Only,  if  you  can  reach  the  bell, 
press  it.  If  the  stewardess  doesn't  come  and 
take  away  those  lilies-of-the-valley,  I  shall 
hate  lilies-of-the-valley  the  rest  of  my  life. 
I  feel  as  if  I'd  eaten  them  now !  " 

For  a  weary  period  following  upon  this  re- 
mark, Nelly,  when  there  drifted  across  her 
mind  anything  related  to  the  reasons  of  her 
rashness  in  setting  off  upon  the  back  of  this 
wallowing  delirious  beast,  turned  from  it  in 
weak  loathing,  as  from  an  odor  of  stale  lilies, 
and  wondered  at  herself. 

On  the  fourth  day  at  sea,  she  woke  with 
sensations  of  a  more  negative  kind  than  there- 
tofore; the  sight  of  the  marbled  deep  rising 
at  regular  intervals  to  the  top  of  her  port-hole, 
and  dropping  away  with  the  same  inexorable 
"5 


April's  Sowing 

unhurried  speed,  did  not  produce  on  her  the 
mental  effect  of  a  reasoned  cruelty.  The 
mysterious  horror  attached  to  seeing  her  cloak 
swing  free  of  the  wall  and  hang  out  into  the 
middle  of  the  stateroom  did  not  force  her  to 
keep  her  eyes  shut.  She  turned  an  absolute 
indifference  upon  the  antics  of  her  suspended 
clothing;  she  found  pleasure  in  the  cold 
sunny  look  on  the  face  of  the  sea. 

The  air,  when  it  flowed  down  to  meet  her 
later  on  the  hobnailed  steps  of  the  companion- 
way,  revived  her  like  a  long  sparkling  drink. 
Coming  fully  out  into  the  world  of  swirling, 
rushing  sound,  she  pushed  up  her  face  to  the 
tonic  cold,  breathed  deep,  and  felt  made  over 
new.  She  looked  on  the  sea,  whose  true 
character  she  had  vowed  to  report  on  land 
more  exactly  than  had  yet  been  done,  with  a 
soft  feeble-minded  gratitude  to  it  that  at  last 
its  bitter  malignity  toward  herself  was  spent. 
She  lay  in  her  steamer-chair,  almost  oblit- 
erated by  wraps,  conscious  of  a  luxury  in 
mere  existence. 

116 


April 's  Sowing 

Her  mind  was  at  rest  about  the  past,  now ; 
the  past  seemed  part  of  the  shore  left  behind. 
It  did  not  project  itself  very  vividly,  either, 
into  the  future  actually  awaiting  her  on  the 
shore  the  ship  was  nearing ;  it  enjoyed  a 
cradled,  transitional  period,  without  sense  of 
responsibility  to  itself;  with  license  to  weave 
pretty  romantic  pictures,  the  like  of  which,  in 
properly  conscious  moments  on  land,  she  had 
questioned  and  quarreled  with,  and  subjected 
to  the  rules  of  common  sense,  till  they  melted 
discouraged  under  the  brutal  test. 

Shortly  after  landing,  Nelly  casually  signi- 
fied her  intention  of  sending  the  maid  they 
had  brought  with  them  back  by  the  returning 
steamer. 

"  Bella  ?  "  asked  Murrie,  blankly ;  "  send 
Bella  home  ?  My  dearest  child,  what  do  you 
mean  ?  What  is  the  matter  with  her  ?  What 
has  she  done  ?  " 

"  I  see,"  said  Nelly,  turning  from  the  hotel 
window  whence  with  deeply  interested  eyes 
she  had  been  watching  the  foreign  street, 
117 


April's  Sowing 

"  that  you  have  not  the  faintest  conception 
of  what  we  are  about  to  start  in  for.  Oh, 
my  poor  Murrie  !  —  There,  you  are  begin- 
ning to  have  the  appropriate  expression,  the 
startled,  coming-to  look  of  Pauline,  the  Lady 
of  Lyons.  Well,  you  may,  you  deluded  dear! 
Here  in  Bremen,  it  is  nothing.  Here  we 
merely  dispense  with  the  services  of  Bella, 
and  send  her  home.  Though  we  button  our 
own  boots,  we  still  have  a  suite  on  the  first 
floor,  and  ever  so  many  courses  for  dinner. 
But  in  Dresden !  There  we  are  going  to  live 
like  two  sober  straitened  students,  in  two  little 
bedrooms  and  a  sitting-room,  no  better  than 
you  were  accustomed  to  of  old,  Murrie,  when 
you  were  such  a  student  in  reality ;  you've 
unwarily  told  me  all  about  it.  And  no  one 
comes  to  see  us  more  exciting  than  a  music- 
master  ;  and  when  we  want  amusement,  we 
go  out  for  a  simple  Spaziergang ;  or  if  we  feel 
that  we  have  earned  it,  we  take  our  knitting 
to  the  opera-house,  and  sit  in  the  German 
for  nigger's-heaven  —  " 
118 


April's  Sowing 

"  I  suppose,  dear,  that  I  shall  in  time  be  in 
possession  of  your  whole  meaning.  Mean- 
while, let  me  enough  into  the  secret  to  join 
you  in  laughing.  What  are  you  doing  ?  " 

"  I  am  putting  away  my  rings.  The  act 
is  a  symbol,  Murrie.  No  one  must  see  me 
in  a  turquoise  the  size  of  a  robin's  egg." 

"  You  are  quite  right,  dear.  They  think 
differently  here  of  the  taste  of  wearing  such 
articles,  —  for  a  person  of  your  age,  I  mean. 
I  meant  to  speak  to  you  about  it." 

"  I  have  not  their  ideas  of  taste  in  the  least 
on  my  heart.  But  stones  like  these  and  a 
lady's  maid  of  Bella's  style  seem  to  give  the 
key  of  one's  scale  of  prices,  and  at  once  the 
circumstances  arising  around  one  fall  into 
proportion  with  them.  And  I  want  to  ap- 
pear poor  and  modest,  Murrie,  to  the  point 
that  nothing  will  offer  to  divert  me  from  my 
dedication  of  myself  to  the  study  of  an  art  — 
by  which  of  course  I  am  hoping  later  to  earn 
an  honest  living,  not  so  likely  in  the  concert 
field,  which  Paderewsky  rather  crowds,  as  in 
119 


April's  Sowing 

some  little  Western  field,  some  conservatory 
for  the  deaf.  Don't  look  so  mystified,  Mur- 
rie !  When  it  is  all  over,  what  a  time  I  will 
give  you !  Like  l  Curlylocks,  Curlylocks, 
will  you  be  mine  ? '  But  until  I  say  4  Time 
up ! '  don't  tell  which  Nelly  Brown  I  am, 
Murrie.  Let  me  be  just  one  of  the  hard- 
working, little-spending,  unnoticed  tribe  of 
Nelly  Browns  scattered  all  over  the  world." 

"  Hard-working,  you  !  Little-spending ! 
Here,  let  me  sit  down." 

"  Don't  faint,  Pauline.  Is  it  such  a  crazy, 
unnatural  whim  ?  Why  shouldn't  Curly- 
locks  have  grown  sick,  in  twenty  years,  of 
strawberries,  sugar,  and  cream,  and  wanted  to 
try  a  common  diet  ?  Why  don't  you  say  to 
yourself,  you  stupid  Murrie,  'This  notion  of 
Nelly's  won't  last  long  enough  to  make  any 
real  difference,'  and  lend  yourself  to  it  grace- 
fully, pretending  you  find  it  amusing  ?  That 
is  what  I  was  counting  upon  from  you,  Mur- 
rie. That,  in  fact,  is  why  I  brought  you  ! " 

"And  that  is  what  I  was  really  just  about 
120 


April's  Sowing 

to  say,  my  dear,"  said  Murrie,  only  a  little 
lamely,  only  a  little  behind  time.  "  I  should 
like  it  of  all  things.  Heaven  knows  that  a 
quiet  time  is  what  I  at  heart  prefer.  Really, 
Nelly,  in  pleasing  yourself  in  this  matter,  you 
will  be  more  than  pleasing  me.  I  shall  enjoy 
of  all  things  a  spell  of  true  quiet.  I  can  start 
a  couple  of  those  lifelong  pieces  of  German 
embroidery,  one  for  Emma  and  one  for 
Adela.  And  I  should  dearly  like  to  take  up 
some  special  study  myself,  which  is  a  thing 
one  never  has  time  for  at  home :  the  study, 
for  instance,  of  Goethe,  his  philosophy  as 
gathered  from  his  entire  work.  That  is 
what  my  aunt,  Mrs.  Simons,  did,  and  found 
it  a  great  help.  But  that,  of  course,  I  would 
do  only  at  odd  moments,  when  I  could  be  of 
no  use  to  you  in  your  music,  dear,  or  as  in- 
terpreter between  you  and  your  teachers." 

"  You  precious  old  Murrie  !  —  I  am  not 
laughing  at  you,  no  !  Don't  for  a  moment 
think  it !  You  don't  mind  my  laughing, 
dear  ?  It  is  only  the  delicious  tableau  we 

121 


April's  Sowing 

make:  you  poring  over  Goethe,  with  your 
feet  in  hot  water,  and  me  pegging  away  at 
Ollendorff,  with  a  wet  towel  around  my 
head,  and  the  clock  telling  one  !  Oh,  it  is 
too  touching  !  Why  I  laugh  is  so  as  not  to 
cry  !  —  Oh,  Murrie,  my  poor  Ma  humming 
Baby  Jones  to  sleep  !  Oh,  my  poor  Pa  in 
Cloverfield !  Is  there  any  such  place  any 
more  upon  the  earth  as  Cloverfield  ?  Oh,  I 
mustn't!  —  Do  you  think  we  could  find  the 
old  rooms  you  had  ?  Wouldn't  it  be  rather 
fun  ?  Things  don't  change  here  in  a  quar- 
ter of  a  century  as  they  do  with  us  —  at 
least,  that  is  what  every  one  is  always  say- 
ing ! " 

"  Not  things,  dear,  but  people  I  am  afraid 
do.  It  does  not  seem  likely  that  Frau  Schul- 
ler — Frau  Ottilie,  we  used  to  call  her  — 
still  lets  rooms,  and  the  same  ones.  Still,  of 
course,  she  might ;  or  some  one  else  might 
let  the  same  ones.  She  must  be  quite  old 
now.  She  had  recently  become  a  widow 
when  I  knew  her,  and  had  the  future  of  a 
122 


April's  Sowing 

daughter  very  much  on  her  heart.      Pita,  how 
well  I  remember  her  !  " 

u  Is  Peter  a  girl's  name  here  ?  " 
"  I  believe  it's  the  short  for  Josephine. 
It  does  seem  funny,  come  to  think  of  it ; 
but  no  funnier  really  than  Polly  for  Mary  in 
English.  Dear  me  !  How  I  should  like  to 
drop  in  on  them,  and  see  if  I  am  so  changed 
they  would  not  recognize  me.  It's  rather 
grewsome,  though,  hunting  up  old  friends ;  it 
would  be  so  horrid  to  be  told  on  reaching 
the  old  door  that  they  had  all  been  dead  for 
years.  Or  not  to  be  able  to  find  the  place 
at  all,  everything  being  so  changed.  Dear 
me !  I  meant  fully,  when  I  left  her,  to  cor- 
respond with  dear  Frau  Ottilie  the  rest  of 
my  life,  and  cheer  her  by  little  Christmas 
and  birthday  remembrances.  It  would  have 
been  so  easy  and  cost  so  little.  Strange  how 
those  things  come  to  an  end,  one  doesn't 
know  how.  How  little  we  are  what  we  set 
out  to  be,  child  —  how  little  we  do  what  we 
intended  ! " 

...  ,        123 


April's  Sowing 

"  Don't,  Murrie  !  When  I  am  so  blue 
already  I  have  all  I  can  do  to  keep  up ! 
Where's  your  character  for  cheerfulness  ? 
We  will  not  miss  a  single  mail  in  writing 
home.  We  will  send  them  a  regular  diary 
and  photographs  of  everything,  and  pressed 
flowers  and  samples.  Cheer  up,  Murrie 
dear  !  If  your  Ottilie  had  kept  on  writing 
to  you,  you  would  probably  have  written  to 
her.  It's  a  comfort  that  we  are  all  so  much 
alike  —  but  isn't  it  ghastly  that  it  should  be 
a  comfort !  Oh,  let's  never,  never  forget 
any  one  again  !  Come,  dear  !  We'll  hunt  up 
Ottilie,  and  induce  her  to  forgive  and  take  us 
in.  She  would  be  such  a  good  one  to  direct 
us  to  the  proper  teachers  and  set  us  going 
right.  We  should  have  all  the  advantages  of 
belonging  in  a  good  private  family ;  but  we 
must  firmly  dispense  with  all  the  disadvan- 
tages. You  must  explain  to  her,  dear  Murrie, 
how  much  we  object  to  interference  of  any 
sort ;  and  how  much  it  is  in  our  habits  to  do 
just  as  we  please.  Particularly  in  mine." 
124 


April's  Sowing 

"  That's  lovely  !  If,  with  the  disposition 
I  remember  in  her,  she  could  hear  the  senti- 
ments dropping  from  your  rosebud  mouth, 
how  she  would  rise  up  and  do  her  mightiest 
to  bring  you  to  a  sense  of  the  becoming  in  a 
jeune  fille  !  I  do  wonder  which  of  the  two 
there  would  be  most  left  of  at  the  end.  For- 
tunately, it  is  really  only  the  principle  you 
would  be  at  variance  about.  Your  conduct 
will  probably  be  much  that  of  any  amiable 
self-respecting  girl.  I  think  therefore  I  will 
not  make  her  bristle  unnecessarily  with  an 
exposition  of  your  theoretical  rule  of  con- 
duct; the  less  if  we  are  going  unheralded, 
without  maid,  or  rings,  or  any  evidence  of 
heavy  backing  in  Cloverfield." 

Which  indeed,  a  few  days  later,  was  the 
fashion  of  their  going. 

"  And  this  is  the  place  where  you  used  to 
live !  "  Nelly  exclaimed,  when  the  door  had 
closed  on  the  landlady.  "And  that  was 
she ! " 

"Yes,  my  dear,"  said  Murrie  deprecat- 
125 


April's  Sowing 

ingly ;  "  I  am  very  much  afraid  that  I  have 
brought  you  to  the  wrong  place.  I  am  quite 
sure  you  won't  like  it,  and  I  shall  feel  re- 
sponsible. I  remembered  it  so  different, 
though  I  confess  that  the  things  look  extraor- 
dinarily like  the  same  things:  that  table- 
cloth may  be  another,  but  it  might  just  as 
well  be  the  old  one,  for  any  difference.  The 
very  wall-pattern  comes  back  to  me  !  Dear 
me!  a  green  stripe  and  a  white,  a  green  and 
a  white,  and  the  little  sentimental  flowers. 
I  remember  counting  them  when  I  was  in 
bed,  with  a  cold,  I  guess.  I  have  been  car- 
rying it  all  in  my  mind  as  cheerfuller,  larger. 
It  does  look  bare  and  chilly  and  like  poor 
students,  with  a  vengeance.  The  change,  I 
suppose,  is  in  myself;  the  cheerfulness  I  re- 
membered was  my  own." 

"  I  like  it !  "  said  Nelly,  against  expecta- 
tion ;  she  looked  about  her  with  the  solemn 
eyes  of  a  cat  in  a  new  garret. 

"  Well,  it  is  clean  !  And  I  could  see  that 
old  Frau  Ottilie  would  be  glad  to  have  us. 
126 


April's  Sowing 

I  gathered  that  she  finds  difficulty  in  letting 
her  rooms.  She  has  not  been  prospering, 
poor  lady.  I  can  sympathize.  Her  Pita  has 
not  married,  as  she  had  naturally  hoped  she 
would." 

"  I  couldn't  understand  much  of  your  con- 
versation, even  when  for  my  sake  you  spoke 
French.  Is  her  French  very  bad,  Murrie,  or 
is  it  mine  ?  But  I  thought  it  rather  hard  on 
the  old  Fraulein  to  bemoan  right  before  her 
that  she  had  not  been  able  to  get  a  husband. 
She  looks  such  a  meek,  good,  homely  dear. 
Perhaps  any  daughter  of  her  mother's  would 
be  meek." 

"  She  is  really  enormously  well  informed. 
They,  no  doubt,  would  be  very  grateful  if 
you  engaged  her  to  give  you  German  lessons 
rather  than  some  one  from  outside." 

"  I  had  just  as  soon.  She  shall  teach  me 
German ;  and  I,  over  and  above  her  terms, 
will  teach  her  to  do  her  hair,  which  would 
have  been  of  more  use  to  that  frumpy  angel 
fifteen  years  ago  than  ever  German  will  be 
127 


April's  Sowing 

to  me.  Oh,  I  shall  like  it  here  —  when  they 
get  that  stove  going.  How  freezing  cold  it 
is  !  Where  shall  we  put  the  piano  ?  Where 
did  it  use  to  stand  ?  " 

"  Here,  in  the  light.  I  had  long  boxes  of 
mignonette  in  the  windows.  It  would  be 
easy  enough  to  have  them  again." 

"  Oh,  Murrie,  I  am  going  to  like  it !  " 

"  Are  you,  dear  ?  I  am  delighted  !  I  am 
astonished  too ;  because  it  is  so  utterly  differ- 
ent from  anything  you  have  ever  known.  I 
suppose  the  place  has  possibilities,  like  any 
place.  We  can  make  it  look  cosier  by  put- 
ting flowers  everywhere,  and  throwing  knick- 
knacks  and  photographs  about,  and  heaping 
fat  down  cushions  on  the  sofa  —  for  pity's 
sake,  feel  this  bolster  !  —  and  draping  things 
on  the  wall  —  " 

"  It  is  going  to  remain  exactly  as  it  is, 
Murrie.  Even  to  the  tatting  tidies  made  by 
Pita  when  she  was  little  —  even  to  the  rav- 
eled wool  lamp-mat.  Here  we  will  have  a 
bookcase  ;  here,  the  piano.  Nothing  further, 
128 


April's  Sowing 

I  swear  !  Not  a  flower  !  Not  a  stuffed  bird  ! 
Your  own  bedroom  you  can  fix  to  suit  your- 
self: you  can  convert  it  into  a  nest  of  luxury, 
as  far  as  a  barelegged  iron  bedstead  permits. 
I  will  take  refuge  in  it  with  you  when  I 
get  homesick.  Now  we  must  cast  about  for 
a  piano-teacher :  preferably  a  man,  because 
I  know  myself,  I  shall  do  better,  I  shall 
have  more  pride  about  it ;  and  some  nice 
English-speaking  person  to  read  with  me, 
preferably  a  woman  —  there  is  something  so 
confidential  about  exposing  the  whole  extent 
of  one's  ignorance.  Oh,  Murrie,  I  am  going 
to  love  this  queer  little  poverty-stricken  place 
—  I  think!  You  dear  Murrie,  it  is  good  of 
you  to  come  with  me  here,  and  do  everything 
I  want.  You  are  good  to  me,  Murrie ;  and 
I  always  so  consistently  a  pig  to  you  —  don't 
think  I  don't  know  it.  But  you  shouldn't 
stand  it !  "  Nelly  caught  Murrie,  and  rubbed 
her  own  cheek  endearingly  against  the  older 
cheek,  letting  escape,  in  an  irrelevant  impulse, 
sighed  words  that  were  half  lost  down  Mur- 
K  129 


April's  Sowing 

He's  collar  :  "  I  want  to  be  nice !  I  want 
to  be  clever  !  And  sweet !  And  not  selfish  ! 
If  there  are  such  beautiful  things  that  every 
one  raves  about  them,  I  want  to  see  them 
too.  I  too  want  to  see  that  they  are  beau- 
tiful !  " 


130 


THE  bookcase  came  filled  with  volumes 
that  Nelly  had  a  childish  liking  for  ordering 
and  reordering  on  the  shelves,  opening  them 
to  smell  the  new  paper.  Frau  Ottilie  took 
the  trouble  to  announce  in  person  one  day  an 
extraordinary  package  from  the  bookseller's. 
She  left  the  door  open  behind  her  for  the 
grunting  man  and  maid  who  were  bringing 
it;  and  remained,  without  pretending  that  she 
had  come  for  anything  else,  to  see  it  opened. 
It  contained  a  universal  history  purchased  by 
'3' 


April's  Sowing 

Nelly.  Her  scheme  was  to  learn  the  whole 
story  once  for  all,  and  not  be  in  the  dark  any 
longer  concerning  any  allusion.  She  began 
reading  this  work  early  on  the  next  morning, 
but  soon  reversed  the  order  of  the  chapters, 
and  was  satisfied  that  she  got  on  better  so. 
She  also  bought  another  universal  history,  in 
a  single  volume,  with  pictures ;  and,  to  bear 
a  similar  relation  to  her  handsome  Shakespere 
in  thirteen  volumes,  an  attractive  Charles  and 
Mary  Lamb  key  to  the  mysteries  of  the  plots. 
The  piano  came,  the  lustrous  rosewood 
grand,  that  half  filled  the  room,  and  made  it 
elegant ;  a  middle-aged  professor  followed, 
who  adjusted  Nelly's  hands  upon  it,  and 
patiently  drilled  them  to  make  music.  An 
elderly  Englishwoman  appeared  punctually 
in  the  early  day,  who  supported  and  pushed 
Nelly  up  the  steep  path  of  learning,  pointing 
out  to  her  the  encouraging  flowers  by  the 
way,  and  bidding  her  periodically  turn  to 
admire  the  broadening  view.  And  Fraulein 
Pita  served  her  with  alternate  French  and 
132 


April's  Sowing 

German.  Having  resolved  to  address  each 
other  in  none  but  foreign  tongues,  Murrie 
and  Nelly  were  mostly  hoarse  with  laughing. 

Pita  had  not  been  there  many  times  when 
Murrie,  lingering  at  the  work-table  at  the  end 
of  a  lesson,  heard  Nelly's  voice  in  the  adjoin- 
ing bedroom,  high  and  loud  in  her  anxiety  to 
make  her  meaning  penetrate  :  "  There,  Pita  ! 
That  is  the  way  !  You  shouldn't  it  all  down- 
spatten.  Auf-fluffen,  auf-fluffen  must  you 
it !  And  every  night  good  brushen  —  brushen ! 
And  on  little  kid  devils  locken  —  locken  ! 
And  every  two  or  three  weeks  good  washen  ! 
Then  it  will  look  recht  schoen.  Verstehen  ? 
Nice,  handsome  Pita !  Look  at  yourself  in 
the  Spiegel,  and  see  how  lovely  you  look  !  " 

"  Ach,  Nelly  !  "  came  in  the  other  voice. 

"  But  that's  not  all !  You  must  make  your 
mother  have  you  big  sleeves  made,  great  big 
sleeves  like  this  !  Gross  !  Ungeheuer  !  And 
you  must  have  two  —  or  I  guess  three  would 
be  better  —  of  your  skirts  put  into  one.  It's 
not  the  material,  it's  the  shape  of  a  thing 


April's  Sowing 

that  matters  !  Look  at  me  !  This  dress  of 
mine  is  not  worth  a  penny  more  than  yours. 
It's  simple  —  as  anything  !  But  if  my  dress- 
maker woman  didn't  make  it  the  right  shape 
at  first,  I  would  sit  upon  her  until  she  did  ! 
And  so  ought  you  to  do  !  What  a  pity  I 
can't  make  you  understand  !  Here,  Murrie, 
come  in  here,  dear,  and  just  see  what  a 
different  thing  Miss  Pita  looks.  And  tell  her 
word  for  word  what  I  say  —  " 

Pita's  mother  not  unfrequently  mounted 
the  steep  stairs,  and  on  the  latter  half  of  her 
commanding  rat-tat  appeared  in  the  doorway. 
Murrie  looked  up,  always  amiable  and  dis- 
arming ;  work  in  hand,  she  half  rose,  dropping 
her  scissors  and  silks.  Nelly  tried  to  look 
pleasant  toward  one  taking  for  the  moment 
in  some  sort  the  character  of  guest  to  her, 
but  a  slight  frown  went  side  by  side  with  her 
smile.  It  seemed  to  her  extraordinary  that 
the  Frau  Landlady  could  not  let  them  be. 

Frau  Ottilie  had  had  so  many  students  in 
her  house  that  she  knew  just  what  was  good 
134 


April's  Sowing 

for  them ;  and  their  good  she  regularly  at- 
tended to,  even  though  only  paid  for  lodging 
and  board.  She  watched  the  ways  and  prog- 
ress of  each  inmate  of  her  house,  and  freely 
interposed  her  unauthorized  authority,  en- 
dured, no  one  knew  why,  but  that  her  face 
was  benevolent  as  well  as  stern,  and  sad 
enough  to  protect  her  ways,  however  prepos- 
terous, from  ridicule.  Besides,  her  advice 
was  good. 

"  My  child,  what  is  that  you  play  ? "  she 
came  in  one  morning  to  say.  "  The  nervous 
way  you  have  of  practicing  makes  me  ready 
to  cry  out  in  my  room  below  with  communi- 
cated nervous  discomfort.  Your  tempos  are 
the  most  extraordinary  !  Of  time  you  have 
no  idea.  Here  I  have  brought  up  to  you  the 
metronome.  This  I  will  set  in  motion  for 
you.  Melodic  in  F.  Good.  Moderate.  So. 
Tik-tak  !  Tik-tak !  Now  you  keep  that 
going,  my  child.  I  shall  be  able  to  tell  at 
once  if  you  stop  it.  As  for  the  signs  of 
rallentando  and  accelerando,  you  play  not  well 


April's  Sowing 

enough  to  have  it  of  any  consequence  whether 
you  regard  them." 

"  Murrie,"  sighed  Nelly,  when  Frau  Ottilie 
had  retired,  "  will  you  tell  that  old  woman 
to  mind  her  own  business  !  " 

In  the  midst  of  her  practicing,  not  many 
days  after,  Frau  Ottilie  came  up  again,  hold- 
ing something  behind  her,  as  she  might  have 
held  a  rod.  "  How  much  is  it  you  tell  your 
master  that  you  practice  in  the  day  ? " 

Nelly  ruffled  her  forehead  in  half-amused 
exasperation.  "  Why  ?  To  whom  does  it 
matter  anything  ?  Three  hours,  I  guess  — 
half  an  hour  at  a  time." 

"So  I  thought.  I  always  look  at  the 
clock  when  you  begin.  But  you  always 
stop  five  or  six  minutes  short  of  your  half, 
beside  getting  up  from  your  piano-stool  and 
walking  to  the  window  a  dozen  times.  I 
can  hear  your  feet.  With  this  absence  of 
conscience  will  you  do  nothing.  Here  I 
have  brought  up  to  you  the  half-hour  sand- 
glass. This  you  turn  upside  down.  So. 
136 


April's  Sowing 

And  you  practice  without  stopping  till  all  the 
sand  is  run  out." 

"  Murrie  !  "  screamed  Nelly,  but  not  be- 
fore Frau  Ottilie's  slow  step  had  died  down 
the  house.  "  Will  you  tell  that  old  busybody 
to  stay  at  home  ?  I  believe,"  she  added 
softly,  "that  it  will  become  my  painful  busi- 
ness to  check  her !  " 

Again,  one  afternoon  when  Murrie  and 
Nelly  had  settled  themselves  chillily  beside 
the  great  stove,  Frau  Ottilie  came  in  with  a 
mighty  "  £/'  was?  "  and  laid  her  commands 
on  them  to  go  for  a  walk,  enlarging  candidly 
to  Nelly  on  the  reason  of  her  not  being  a 
lovely  color  like  a  German  or  English  girl, 
but  so  bleich)  so  bleicb  ! 

The  languid  creatures  laughed  to  find  them- 
selves in  the  street. 

"  A  person  would  have  to  spread  out  her 
feet,  and  brace  herself  like  a  mule !  "  said 
Nelly ;  "  it  really  ought  to  be  done  by  some- 
body. I  always  think  I  am  going  to  be  the 
one  to  do  it,  just  for  the  glory  of  Cloverfield. 
137 


April's  Sowing 

But  if  I  were,  don't  you  see,  I  should  have  to 
stick  to  the  course  she  opposed,  and  she  makes 
it  so  uncomfortable  by  the  ghastly  doubts  she 
raises  in  your  mind.  Murrie,  tell  me  the 
truth  :  doesn't  she  exaggerate  a  little  when 
she  says  I  am  so  bleicb?  Am  I  a  fine  saffron, 
as  she  intimates  ?  I  can  see  myself  in  the 
glass,  and  it  doesn't  seem  really  as  bad  as  she 
says.  But  one  never  knows  how  one  may 
strike  another !  We  really  must  go  for  a 
little  tramp  every  day.  Ethel  always  told  me 
I  ought  to.  The  air  is  good  after  that  stove ! 
Let's  walk  briskly,  to  keep  warm.  We  will 
become  great  pedestrians,  Murrie.  —  But," 
she  added,  pensively  looking  down,  "  I  will 
never  wear  sensible  boots." 

When  next  Nelly  was  compelled  to  suffer 
Frau  Ottilie's  frankness,  the  ponderous  lady's 
strictures  found  her  in  a  different  mood. 
Nelly  had  reached  the  point  in  her  progress 
where  her  figurative  first  wind  was  exhaust- 
ing. The  novelty  was  worn  off  her  adventure : 
she  stood  bewildered  before  the  difficulties  be- 
138 


April's  Sowing 

setting  her,  the  immensity  of  the  field  to  be 
traversed  before  one  acquired  the  faintest 
characteristics  of  a  traveler  therein.  On  this 
day  it  seemed  to  her  that  her  friends  in  Amer- 
ica might  have  troubled  themselves  a  little  more 
about  her;  home  letters  were  unfrequent  and 
unsatisfactory. 

While  she  sat  with  aching  shoulders,  scien- 
tifically exercising  her  five  fingers,  in  the 
darkling  nether  stratum  of  her  mind  she 
pondered  giving  up  this  whole  mistaken 
weary  scheme  of  grubbing,  and  going  back  to 
be  a  butterfly.  Frau  Ottilie  came  in  at  this 
juncture  with  an  insignificant  object ;  some- 
thing she  had  casually  spoken  of, saying,  "You 
shall  see  it  some  time,"  and  taking  herself  lit- 
erally, had  now  toiled  up  the  stairs  with,  as  if 
her  promise  had  been  made  to  a  child.  Nelly, 
with  the  under-feeling  that  in  a  few  days  she 
should  have  resumed  her  talismanic  blue  ring, 
had  down  her  great  trunk,  and  unfolded  broad 
golden  wings,  leaving  this  old  house  to  con- 
tinue sordid  and  sad  without  her  —  a  feeling, 


April's  Sowing 

too,  that  it  was  somehow  pathetic  that  a 
woman  of  great  age  should  value  so  highly  a 
trifle  such  as  she  was  showing  them  —  exag- 
gerated a  little  her  note  of  admiration  of  the 
paltry  treasure,  and  of  Frau  Ottilie's  kindness 
in  bringing  it  to  them.  While  she  was 
speaking,  Frau  Ottilie  watched  her  in  curi- 
ous silence. 

"  My  child,"  she  said,  when  Nelly  stopped, 
"  do  say  that  again  !  " 

"  Say  what  ?  "  asked  Nelly,  puzzled. 

"What  you  were  just  saying.  Or  anything 
else.  Talk.  I  want  to  watch  your  face  in 
the  meanwhile.  It  is  extraordinary  !  " 

Nelly,  with  an  impulse  of  ill-humor, 
turned  on  her  heel,  and  walking  to  the 
window,  looked  frigidly  down  at  the  people 
passing. 

Frau  Ottilie  followed  her  quite  simply,  and 
putting  out  an  unscared  finger,  turned  the 
girl's  face  toward  her  own.  Nelly's  teeth 
shut.  She  thought  the  time  had  come  to  say 
something  properly  rude.  It  apparently  had 
140 


April's  Sowing 

not.  The  strong  light  was  cruel  to  Frau 
Ottilie's  peering  old  face  ;  the  black  of  her 
clothes  looked  green.  Nelly  tilted  her  little 
head  backwards,  a  proud  resignation  on  her 
eyelids. 

Frau  Ottilie  ran  her  fingers  across  the  girl's 
white  forehead,  smoothing  it  out.  "  What  is 
it  makes  you  talk  with  your  whole  face,  my 
child  ?  "  she  said,  not  unkindly.  "  You  will 
have  lines  all  over  it  long  before  you  begin  to 
be  old."  Nelly's  hand  jumped  to  her  temple. 
"  If  you  knew  the  wearisome  effect  it  has, 
beside !  Repose  you  must  cultivate  in  your 
features ;  it  is  so  beautiful,  so  much  a  part  of 
dignity.  You  Americans  are  so  conscious, 
that  is  your  chief  defect.  Never  have  I  seen 
an  American  who  was  pretty,  whose  face  did 
not  tell  you  at  once  she  thought  herself  even 
prettier  than  she  appeared  to  you.  But  you 
will  not  be  pretty  long,  my  dear,  if  you  mis- 
use your  face  like  that.  Nothing  is  so  dis- 
agreeable as  tricks  such  as  yours  when  the 
lines  made  by  them  deepen  and  settle.  You 
141 


April's  Sowing 

will  in  time  merely  appear  to  be  troubled  with 
a  tic  nerveux." 

"  Let  me  go,  please,"  said  Nelly,  a  small 
break  in  her  voice;  and  shaking  off  Frau 
Ottilie's  hand,  she  left  the  room,  and  closed 
her  bedroom  door. 

She  went  to  the  greenish  mirror  on  the  chest 
of  drawers,  and  standing  uncertainly  before  it, 
watched  two  unexplainable  tears  form  in  her 
eyes  and  be  drunk  back.  In  want  of  anything 
to  do  in  that  room,  she  dropped  into  a  chair 
and  fixed  her  glance  upon  her  reflection,  with 
a  superficial  supposition  that  she  was  waiting 
for  the  dragon  in  the  next  room  to  have  the 
grace  to  leave.  Criticism  had  found  her  that 
day  in  no  mood  for  it,  that  was  all,  she  said 
to  herself.  She  cared  very  little  what  Frau 
Ottilie  thought  of  her  looks.  She  examined 
her  face,  nevertheless,  with  the  natural  inter- 
est derived  from  a  new  point  of  view.  She 
did  not  look  pretty  at  that  moment,  it  was 
sure;  because  she  was  extremely  tired  and 
savagely  cross.  She  tried  to  look  pretty  to 
142 


April's  Sowing 

command  :  she  took  the  attitude  she  judged 
necessary,  she  arranged  her  features.  But 
admire  herself  she  could  not.  She  smiled ; 
her  smile,  in  the  disagreeable  side-light,  was 
not  helped  by  the  moist  radiant  pearly  patch 
her  teeth  made  in  a  more  favoring  light :  it 
had  an  effect  of  mere  muscular  contortion. 
She  pushed  up  her  eyebrows  experimentally, 
and  saw  the  crowded  lines  on  her  forehead 
that  Frau  Ottilie  said  would  by  and  by  never 
leave  it.  Mechanically  she  began  rubbing 
them  out.  She  suddenly  dashed  her  face  peril- 
ously near  the  glass,  to  look  for  crow's-feet. 
She  breathed  again !  No  trace  of  them  when 
her  face  was  still.  She  sat  down  in  relief, 
with  an  ear  perfunctorily  alert  for  sounds  in 
the  sitting-room  of  Frau  Ottilie  leaving  it. 
Before  she  could  govern  them,  tears  had  come 
into  her  eyes  again ;  this  time  she  allowed 
them  to  form  fully,  and  with  heaving  chest 
watched  them  fall.  She  had  put  Frau  Ottilie's 
remarks  below  her  consideration ;  but  thoughts 
of  her  own  bred  by  them  pressed  on  her  heart 


April's  Sowing 

like  wreathed  thorns :  the  sadness,  the  piti- 
fulness  of  it !  that  it  should  be  only  a  question 
of  time,  and  whether  or  not  she  cultivated  the 
repose  of  feature  commended  by  Ottilie,  she 
would  come  to  wrinkles  and  gray  hairs  like 
her — not  be  pretty  any  more!  What  is  sure 
to  happen  in  this  world  of  relentless  condi- 
tions, is  it  not  almost  as  if  already  it  had  hap- 
pened ?  Not  pretty !  When  it  seemed  the 
one  thing  a  person  had  to  be  really  thankful 
for !  And  those  who  loved  one  could  not  in 
reason  love  one  any  more  for  that,  could  not 
be  proud  of  one  for  it!  Oh,  then  —  other 
tears  here  overran,  unchecked,  abundant,  hot 
—  surely  it  behooved  one  to  acquire  some 
little  imperishable  grace  of  mind,  invent  some 
golden  manner  of  being  of  the  heart,  with 
which  still  in  the  gray  hour  of  beauty's  wan- 
ing, to  reward  the  fidelity  of  a  love  found 
faithful,  to  delight  and  charm  still  a  love  that 
had  deserved  well  — 

Ah,  not   in  exalting  the  thought   of  any 
substitute  for  it,  to  underrate  the  good  gift, 
144 


April's  Sowing 

beauty !  This  one  must  by  every  earthly 
precaution  make  as  lasting  as  nature  allows 
—  cease,  for  one  thing,  to  frown  and  raise 
one's  eyebrows  !  Perhaps  it  could  be  kept 
at  some  semblance,  however  attenuated,  of 
bloom,  till  the  eyes  one  wished  eternally  to 
enthrall  were  grown  dim  — 

But  perhaps  —  the  suspicion  arose  not  for 
the  first  time,  but  was  for  the  first  time  looked 
in  the  eyes  —  even  while  beauty  lasted,  its 
effect  upon  the  mind  of  its  most  passionate 
votary  lessened  with  custom.  A  copy-book 
commonplace,  alas,  that  the  power  of  beauty 
has  the  shortest  lease  !  Self-evident,  that  a 
grace  whose  spell  lies  so  greatly  in  its  element 
of  freshness  to  the  sense,  must  dwindle  to 
less  than  half  of  its  worth  with  habit.  Oh, 
then,  the  little  hoard  of  supreme  expedients 
might  be  called  into  requisition  in  youth 
even :  when  the  devoted  eye  was  grown  un- 
impressible  to  the  repeated  round  of  smiles 
and  dimples  and  glances,  the  devoted  soul  per- 
haps would  be  open  still  to  sweet  impressions 
L  145 


April's  Sowing 

from  daily  amenities  of  goodness,  to  surprises 
of  light  cast  from  the  changing  facets  of  a 
polished  mind  — 

Nelly,  sitting  before  her  mirror,  losing 
sight  of  her  face  as  it  grew  more  rapt,  reached 
a  mood  in  which  things  looked  unusual  to 
her,  altered  in  their  proportions  :  familiar 
ideas  she  had  held  important  grown  insignifi- 
cant, and  other  new  half-formed  ones  loom- 
ing large.  She  rose  in  a  sort  of  fear  of  these 
crowding  upon  her,  and  to  restore  herself  by 
some  common  act  to  a  normal  sense  of  her 
state,  bathed  her  face  for  full  ten  minutes ; 
hailing  gratefully  at  last  the  characteristic 
thought  that  she  was  taking  timely  measures 
against  the  threatened  lines. 

With  a  face  like  a  serious  mask,  wearing 
an  expression  rather  noble  for  a  working-day, 
she  went  back  to  the  sitting-room  ;  but  found 
she  was  not  to  brave  the  presence  of  Frau 
Ottilie,  not  to  have  heard  whom  retire  de- 
noted an  abstraction  more  complete  than  she 
had  known.  Her  expression  lost  a  shade  of 
146 


April's  Sowing 

its  nobility.  She  sat  down  at  the  piano,  and 
began  to  play  such  pieces  as  she  knew  well 
enough  to  play  without  her  music ;  listening 
to  herself,  forcing  the  expression  a  little 
toward  sentiment,  wondering  whether  her 
playing  heard  in  the  twilight  could  give  pleas- 
ure, and  unclose  to  the  listener  who  leaned 
with  his  elbow  on  the  instrument,  watching 
her  in  the  violet  shade,  the  delicate  dream- 
world of  which  music  had  sometimes  lately 
given  her  a  hint.  Her  playing  by  degrees 
grew  less  unlike  that  of  a  street-organ  ;  while 
she  tried  to  imagine  at  a  quiet  fireside,  many 
years  old,  a  dying  conversation  that  reac- 
quired  freshness  and  a  tender  Gemuthlichkelt 
from  the  deft  introduction  into  it,  as  a  topic, 
of  the  royal  interests  of  Rome.  Nelly's  lips 
formed  silently,  with  a  luxurious  conscious- 
ness of  grasp  on  them,  seven  harmonious 
names  of  hills,  and  the  dates  of  various  bat- 
tles, and  in  their  order  twelve  splendid  impe- 
rial names,  while  a  jumbled  train  of  pictures 
passed  through  the  illumined  darkness  of  her 


April's  Sowing 

gold -dusted  head:  gladiators,  long -robed 
Christians,  battering  towers,  sibylline  leaves, 
sacred  geese,  a  bleeding  woman  murmuring 
down  history  to  the  end  of  the  world,  "  It 
does  not  hurt !  " 

Murrie,  as  the  year  wore  on,  accepted  for 
a  melancholy  certainty  that  Nelly  would  not 
weary  of  her  fad ;  and  watched  her  with 
covert  wonder  at  the  obstinacy  with  which 
she  plodded  on,  hopeful  regularly  at  morning, 
discouraged  at  evening  —  until  one  day  the 
girl  announced  her  discovery  of  a  special 
application  of  mental  force  by  which  she 
seemed  to  gain  control  over  the  flighty  mo- 
tions of  her  brain,  and  was  enabled  to  center 
her  thoughts  on  what  she  chose.  After  that, 
the  strides  she  made  in  every  study  astonished 
her  friend. 

They  became  indefatigable  haunters  of 
picture-galleries,  insatiable  opera-goers.  Nelly 
asked  naively  of  this  one  and  that,  "  What  is 
the  most  beautiful  thing  you  ever  read  ?  " 
and  having  procured  the  book,  tore  the  heart 
148 


April* x  Sowing 

out  of  it,  eager  to  feel  every  pulsation  it  had 
to  give ;  not  testing  it  by  any  personal  taste, 
but  swallowing  with  devoted  indiscrimination; 
straining  to  transplant  its  beauties  bodily  into 
her  own  little  garden-plot,  adorning  her  mind 
with  stirring  graceful  facts  as  with  the  finest 
paper  roses. 

One  night,  the  task  she  had  set  herself 
was  so  generous,  it  kept  her  at  work  until  so 
late,  that,  weariness  forcing  her  to  go  more 
and  more  slowly,  it  appeared  likely  to  take 
her  foolishly  near  to  daybreak.  She  scorned 
to  stop  short  of  what  she  had  marked  off. 
She  read  on,  one  by  one  taking  the  shell  pins 
out  of  her  hair,  to  ease  her  head ;  tracking 
every  word  she  did  not  know,  and  scribbling 
it  in  English  over  the  German;  declining, 
conjugating,  faithfully  making  sense.  At 
one  point  all  grew  so  difficult  to  grasp  that 
she  turned  her  eyes  from  the  blurring  type, 
and  looked  about  the  room  in  an  effort  to 
clear  her  brain.  She  saw  the  shelves  full  of 
books  :  the  thought  came  to  her,  with  its  full 
149 


April's  Sowing 

attendance  of  discouragement,  how  hard  she 
had  read  at  them,  and  how  little  impression 
made  on  their  total  arrayed  heap.  And  how 
little  impression  that  little  had  made  on  her- 
self, proportionately  !  It  was  like  attempt- 
ing the  mountain  of  glass  of  the  fairy-tale, 
this  learning ;  the  circumstance  of  each  new 
fact  grasped  pushing  an  old  one  out  of  mem- 
ory was  justly  typified  by  the  climber  slipping 
back  at  every  step.  She  leaned  her  head, 
which  was  beginning  to  ache,  upon  one  arm; 
after  a  little  disheartened  rest,  she  raised  it 
again,  determining  to  be  great-souled  at  least 
about  this  thing  :  hers,  after  all,  must  be  the 
common  experience,  her  cranium  was  not 
constituted  on  a  different  plan  from  most 
others.  Something  must  remain  of  all  that 
one  forgot ;  some  fine  essence  of  the  beauty 
one's  mind  had  dwelt  upon  must  cling  to  it, 
subtly  qualifying  it,  making  it  a  degree  more 
like  what  it  had  had  the  grace  to  love.  So 
much  at  least  is  to  be  hoped,  or  the  learner's, 
truly,  is  a  desperate  case. 
150 


April's  Sowing 

She  proceeded  with  her  construing  of 
44  The  Sorrows  of  Young  Werther,"  her 
music-master's  recommended  favorite,  till 
with  the  wearing  on  of  the  hour  a  disagree- 
able consciousness  became  attached  to  the 
yawning  black  square  made  behind  her  by 
the  door  through  which  was  heard  Murrie's 
peaceful  breathing.  She  looked  over  her 
shoulder,  vaguely  fearful  of  seeing  something 
take  form  in  the  darkness  —  till  the  dilation 
of  her  pupils  became  painful,  and  she  linger- 
ingly  withdrew  her  eyes.  At  this  hour  of 
deathly  stillness,  in  the  light  shed  through  the 
green  paper  of  the  lamp-shade,  the  place  took 
on  a  dreamlike  strangeness.  She  hesitated 
helplessly  before  the  uncertainty  of  what  sen- 
sation her  nerves  might  give  her  if  taxed  with 
further  fatigue.  A  light  of  inspiration  lifted 
her  features  suddenly  to  an  amused  childish 
brightness.  After  a  sidelong  glance  at  Mur- 
rie's door,  she  cautiously  tiptoed  into  the  dark- 
ness of  her  own  bedroom ;  whence  she  came 
back  with  an  increased  slyness  of  tread,  an 


April's  Sowing 

indescribable  smile  blossoming  broadly  on  the 
desert  air,  and  a  turbanlike  arrangement  of 
linen  folds  on  her  head. 

She  seated  herself  with  a  refreshed  sigh; 
and  feeling  that,  this  measure  taken,  she  could 
with  ease  work  on  indefinitely,  she  leaned 
back,  instead  of  proceeding  at  once  with  her 
task,  to  indulge  in  a  little  meditation  sug- 
gested by  the  feeling  of  the  delightful  cool- 
ness on  her  head.  At  this  hour,  no  doubt, 
in  various  parts  of  Germany,  others  were 
working  under  similar  conditions,  in  poor 
chambers,  by  a  solitary  lamp,  a  wet  cloth 
binding  their  temples.  Her  imagination,  soon 
particularizing,  settled  down  about  one  of 
these  students,  whose  thoughts,  when  he 
lifted  his  eyes  a  moment  to  rest  them,  went 
wandering  to  lighted  scenes  of  gayety  at  the 
other  side  of  the  world,  to  follow  the  gayest 
of  the  figures  there.  With  an  impulse  of 
hurry,  Nelly  returned  to  her  book,  as  if 
each  step  toward  its  end  had  brought  her 
nearer  as  well  to  some  other,  less  obvious, 
152 


April's  Sowing 

but  surely  better  cherished  end;  as  if  this 
unsuspected  companionship  in  labor  must 
occultly  effect  an  alleviation  to  the  fatigue 
of  the  visioned  student,  like  secret  sharing 
of  a  burden. 

Simultaneously  with  the  perusal  of  the 
love-story  to  which  Nelly  now  applied  her- 
self, was  conducted  in  her  mind  a  pretty 
rehearsal  of  personal  theories  of  love,  airy 
and  bold  and  comprehensive,  in  the  security 
of  no  need  to  state  them  aloud.  In  and  out 
among  the  lines  showing  forth  the  great 
author's  thoughts,  glanced  and  blossomed, 
twittered  and  wound  Nelly's  own. 

"  But  this  will  never  do  !  "  she  said,  recog- 
nizing that  she  was  making  little  progress 
with  Werther.  She  may  have  thought  there- 
upon that  because  she  set  to  gnawing  her 
pencil  she  had  plunged  ear-deep  into  study  : 
in  reality,  she  had  not  been  able  to  stay 
herself  on  the  slippery  inclined  plane  of 
thinking  of  love.  With  face  bent  low,  and 
eyes  half  closed,  she  was  but  a  moment  later 


April's  Sowing 

holding  her  breath  to  call  back  the  sense  of  a 
face  bearing  down  upon  her  somewhat  inex- 
orably, with  a  blue  glance  that  grew  larger 
and  deeper,  bluer  and  more  compelling,  till 
nothing  was  seen  or  known  beside  it ;  the 
sense  of  a  passionate  hurried  breathing  on~ 
her  lips,  that  in  memory  had  still  the  power 
to  stir  her  deepest  being.  A  curious  fine  little 
ache  bored  blindly  through  all  her  veins ;  she 
wished  with  a  great  useless  choking  throb 
that  time  had  not  needed  to  be  lived  through 
hour  by  hour,  minute  by  minute  — 

"  But  if,"  said  the  cold  voice  that  at  the 
climax  of  heated  occasions  spoke  in  Nelly's 
mind  with  such  a  definite  enunciation,  "  if 
one  were  to  find  herself  in  the  most  ordinary 
way  forgotten  ? " 

With  proud  instantaneousness,  a  totally 
different  set  of  mental  activities  than  those 
fermenting  in  the  excited  small  hours,  re- 
sponded in  a  tone  that  matched  the  first  for 
its  common  practical  quality,  "  It  would  not 
in  the  very  least  matter !  Because  in  that 


April's  Sowing 

case  there  would  have  been  nothing  worth 
caring  about !  " 

Nelly  fell  to  working  in  hurried  earnest 
now,  to  be  done  and  go  to  bed.  She  ques- 
tioned her  judgment  for  persisting  with  the 
disproportionate  task,  but  felt  a  superstitious 
dislike  to  breaking  an  engagement  with  her- 
self because  the  mood  was  past  in  which  it 
had  been  made. 

"  Thou  young  she  ass  !  "  she  heard  spoken 
softly  behind  her,  in  tones  that  breathed  scorn 
to  the  point  of  ecstasy.  Turning  with  a 
crazy  jump,  she  saw  Frau  Ottilie  in  her  bed- 
gown and  nightcap.  Nelly's  face,  under  the 
great  Cenci  head-dress,  looked  small  and  pale 
as  a  Pierrot's ;  her  damp  side-locks  hung 
straight  along  her  cheeks  ;  her  eyes  were  great 
and  solemn  far  in  excess  of  the  occasion. 

"  Thou  young  she  ass  !  "  repeated  Frau 
Ottilie,  in  a  voice  that  dropped  to  a  fat  low 
note,  and  seemed  to  revel  in  the  epithet. 
Then,  quite  changing  tone,  "  Now  thou  pack- 
est  instantly  to  bed  !  "  she  said.  "  Hearest 


April's  Sowing 

thou  ?  And  we  hear  no  more  of  this  non- 
sense. That  Marri  —  I  know  her  sufficiently 
well  of  old  days  —  is  just  such  another  Eselln 
as  thyself,  and  lets  thee  do  thy  ridiculous  will 
in  all  things.  But  I  will  not  permit  thee  to 
make  thyself  ill  in  my  house,  hearest  thou  ? 
And  thy  mother  not  here  to  care  for  thee. 
Hereafter  thou  art  in  thy  bed  at  ten  or  the 
very  latest  eleven,  hearest  thou  ?  Never  have 
I  seen  an  object  to  equal  thee  at  this  moment, 
never,  my  child,  in  the  years  of  my  life  !  It 
were  well  thou  couldst  see  thyself  in  a  mir- 
ror, even  as  thou  appearest  to  me.  Thou 
wouldst  never  forget  it.  Come,  come,  bestir 
thyself !  To  bed  !  To  bed  !  See,  now  : 
this  little  end  of  candle  I  leave  with  thee, 
which  will  last  thee  long  enough  to  obey  me ; 
and  the  lamp  I  carry  away." 

Though  she  continued  overt  and  candid  in 
her  correction  of  Nelly,  Frau  Ottilie  was 
overheard  not  long  after  exclaiming  to  a 
table-neighbor,  in  reference  to  the  little 
American,  "  1st  Sie  ntcht  nett !  " 
156 


THE  days,  very  full  and  nearly  alike,  pass- 
ed quickly.  Summer  was,  to  Nelly's  think- 
ing, all  too  soon  upon  them. 

They  departed  for  a  change  and  rest  into 
the  Tyrolese  mountains. 

They  spent  days  of  pastoral  sweetness  out 
under  the  trees,  over  the  valley  ;  consciously 
drinking  in  health  with  the  fir-scented  air; 
Nelly  reading  what  she  called  serious  books, 
Murrie  sewing  and  "  catching  up  with  her 
correspondence." 

The  last  weeks  dragged  to  one  of  them ; 
Nelly  was  very  glad  when  the  time  came  to 
return  to  Dresden. 

She  established  herself  once  more  with  her 
'57 


April's  Sowing 

masters,  feeling  equal  to  whatsoever  exertion. 
She  had  fallen  into  an  unrelenting  jogging 
pace  that  promised  to  bring  her  out  by  sum- 
mer-time at  the  other  side  of  the  tangle  of 
many  a  branch  of  learning,  when  all  her  rules 
must  be  broken  one  day  on  Murrie's  account, 
who  came  in  from  the  street  with  the  glow- 
ing exclamations :  — 

"  Guess  who  is  in  Dresden  !  Guess  whom 
I  met  not  three  blocks  from  here !  The 
Lighters,  my  dear !  Florence  and  her  sister, 
Mrs.  Potter,  and  her  brother-in-law,  and 
Percy,  and  the  little  fellow.  They've  been 
abroad  for  months.  They've  been  travel- 
ing all  over  Germany.  My  dear,  I  was 
never  so  glad  to  see  any  one  in  my  life  ! 
We  fell  on  one  another's  necks.  They 
would  have  come  at  once  to  see  you,  but 
were  prevented  by  some  engagement.  I 
told  them  we  would  go  to  their  hotel  right 
after  lunch." 

"My  dear  —  and  Herr  Liebmann  ?  "  said 
Nelly,  faintly. 

158 


April's  Sowing 

"  Oh,  come  !  'Don't  tell  me  you  are  going 
to  let  an  old  music-lesson  stand  in  your  way  ! 
You  can  leave  word  for  him." 

Nelly  scarcely  knew  what  she  felt;  but 
she  did  know  it  was  not  joy.  She  had  a 
boding  sense  that  something  would  be  ended 
with  her  life  touching  anew  that  of  these  old 
associates.  The  mere  sound  of  their  names, 
taking  her  back,  seemed  to  nullify  in  some 
vague  respect  this  last  year,  to  take  from  its 
unity,  to  complicate  and  confuse  her  senti- 
ments. 

She  wished,  brutally,  that  they  had  stayed 
away. 

After  a  pensive  pause,  during  which  Murrie 
stood  wondering  at  her,  she  rose  to  the  neces- 
sities of  the  case.  Then,  gradually,  she 
warmed  and  was  excited. 

She  looked  over  her  last  year's  dresses,  to 
find  the  one  that  was  the  least  out  of  style ; 
for  Dresden  it  still  did  very  well,  she  thought. 
She  resumed  her  splendid  rings  ;  she  sent  out 
for  violets  ;  and  made  herself  as  like  as  she 


April's  Sowing 

could  to  the  Nelly  Brown  known  of  the 
Lighters. 

At  sight  of  Florence  her  feelings  gave  a 
hearty  up-bound.  The  two  old  boarding- 
school  friends  fell  into  each  other's  arms 
and  laughed. 

Undressing  before  the  mirror  that  night, 
Nelly  seemed  to  herself  another  person  than 
the  one  who  had  dressed  before  it.  She  had 
been  as  if  inoculated  with  pleasure;  she  was 
feverish  to  be  gay  and  amused,  to  be  with 
the  Lighters,  and  just  like  them. 

On  the  dressing-table  lay  an  open  book 
from  which  she  had  been  learning  a  passage 
that  morning  while  she  brushed  her  hair, 
when  nothing  was  further  from  her  thoughts 
than  the  Lighters.  So  much  more  than  a 
day  seemed  to  separate  her  from  it.  She 
tried  vainly  to  recall  the  conned  passage. 
Something  had  indefinably  qualified  the  whole 
year  past.  Her  self  of  the  last  year  had  to 
her  own  mind  a  dreamlike  effect  that  dis- 
comforted her  a  little.  There  was  some- 
160 


April' s  Sowing 

thing  so  real  about  the  Lighters:  her  ears 
were  full  of  their  strenuous  voices  ;  the  voices 
of  the  past  were  become  ghostlike  beside  them. 

She  read  over  the  scrap  of  verse,  as  if 
thereby  she  caught  at  something  stable.  She 
committed  poetry  to  memory  because  she 
liked  to  repeat  it  to  herself  while  she  played 
the  piano.  She  read  the  lines  over  and  over 
now,  persistently,  until  she  had  brought  her 
mind  to  a  frame  in  which  it  could  receive  their 
meaning. 

"  I  think,"  she  said,  when  her  eyes  fell  on 
the  plain  work-gown  she  had  left  across  the 
chair,  "  I  think  I  will  send  word  very  early 
that  I  can't  come  till  I  have  attended  to  all 
my  lessons  as  usual." 

At  that  moment  Murrie  entered  the  room  in 
the  act  of  twisting  a  forelock  on  acrimping-pin. 

"  Nelly,"  she  said,  in  her  meandering  con- 
versational bedtime  tone,  "weren't  you  a 
little  surprised  at  what  we  heard  about  Jack 
Holmes  ?  " 

"  Jack  Holmes  ?  — Who  is  Jack  Holmes  ?" 


April's  Sowing 

"  Jack  Holmes  ?  Why,  John !  Your 
Holmes,  my  dear  !  From  Cloverfield.  The 
one  who  used  to  come  and  see  you.  Ethel's 
brother." 

"  Oh ! " 

"Didn't  you  know  before  that  he  was  a 
classmate  of  Percy's  ?  " 

"No." 

"I  didn't,  either.  But  I  should  have  if  I 
had  stopped  to  think.  They  were  both  '94 
men.  I  guess  it  was  while  you  and  Florence 
were  off  somewhere  out  of  the  room  that  we 
were  talking  about  him.  They  have  all  just 
been  in  Vienna,  you  knew  that." 

"Yes." 

"  They  liked  it  so  well  they're  going  back. 
There  are  lots  of  nice  Americans  there  this 
winter.  They  had  a  tremendously  good 
time.  For  the  matter  of  that,  I've  come  to 
the  conclusion  that  it's  easy  enough  to  have 
a  good  time  anywhere  'if  you  have  a  lot  of 
money.  I  should  think  you  would  like  to 
take  a  holiday,  and  go  on  with  them  for  a 
162 


April's  Sowing 

few  weeks.  Mrs.  Potter  said  she  wished  you 
would.  Florence  seemed  so  happy  to  have 
you  with  her ;  and  Percy  said  he  wished  you 
would.  I  guess  they'll  tease  you  to  go. 
My  dear,  aren't  American  men  the  nicest 
fellows  in  the  world  ?  I  declare,  they  make 
me  feel  patriotic.  I  do  hope  you  will  go. 
It  would  do  you  no  end  of  good." 

"  In  what  way  ?  I  am  not  in  the  slightest 
need  of  having  good  done  to  me,"  said  Nelly, 
coldly. 

"  Oh,  I  know.  They  were  all  saying  how 
much  stronger  you  look.  But  I  warn  you, 
I  am  going  to  make  it  very  easy  for  you  to 
go,  if  you  feel  the  slightest  natural  sneaking 
young  wish  to  be  off  and  have  a  good  time. 
You  needn't  be  consistent,  Nelly,  and  you 
needn't  be  persevering  out  of  any  pride  before 
me.  You  taught  me  long  ago  to  scorn  those 
virtues  and  adore  their  opposites.  You  are 
tired,  I  know,  dear.  Good  night  again." 

Nelly  sat  down  on  the  edge  of  her  bed  and 
looked  at  the  wall  in  front.  The  familiar 
163 


April's  Sowing 

John-Hector  she  had  been  carrying  in  her 
brain,  who  reenacted  ancient  scenes,  who 
moved  with  the  motions  of  her  volition,  was 
suddenly  painted  on  the  outside  air,  independ- 
ent of  her,  a  figure  of  unknown  quantity, 
against  the  improvised  background  of  a  city 
never  seen. 

Before  she  had  stirred,  "  Oh,"  said  Murrie, 
reappearing  in  the  doorway,  rubbing  the  space 
between  her  eyebrows  with  a  rubber  glove; 
"  I  didn't  tell  you  what  I  set  out  to,  did  I  ? 
About  Jack  Holmes.  That  boy !  He  is 
quite  a  figure  in  Vienna,  Percy  says,  among 
a  certain  set,  students  and  Bohemians.  Just 
as  he  was  a  great  football  figure  at  home,  here 
he  is  —  fancy  what !  You  will  never  guess  ! 
A  crack  duelist.  You  know  those  silly  duels 
the  students  are  always  fighting  ?  It  appears 
that  he  is  simply  amazing  at  them.  I  suppose 
it  takes  the  place  of  athletics.  I  suppose 
the  poor  fellow  needs  exercise  and  excitement 
of  some  sort.  But  isn't  it  amusing  that  an 
American  should  excel  at  such  a  thing  ?  It 
164 


April's  Sowing 

is  so  foreign  to  all  our  institutions.  I  suppose 
he  learned  to  fence  at  his  gymnasium  at  home. 
Any  duel  is  against  the  law,  though  ;  you 
know  that;  and  when  any  one  gets  hurt,  all 
involved  have  to  scramble  off  over  the  roofs 
to  escape  arrest.  It's  awfully  inconvenient. 
And  sometimes  when  they  fight,  of  course, 
there's  a  real  grudge,  though  it  wears  more 
or  less  the  face  of  a  sport.  Am  I  boring 
you,  dear  ?  It  is  rather  late  for  a  long  story. 
I  will  make  it  short.  Well,  young  Holmes 
fought  quite  a  lot  of  duels  because  it  appar- 
ently amused  him  to  show  them  they  couldn't 
walk  over  him,  if  he  wasn't  to  the  manner 
born.  I  guess  he  thought  it  fun  to  astonish 
them  at  their  own  game.  Percy  seems  to 
admire  him  for  it.  As  far  as  I  am  concerned, 
I  confess  I  think  he  would  have  done  better, 
under  the  circumstances,  such  as  we  know 
them,  to  give  his  whole  attention  to  his 
work." 

"  You  will  make  it  a  short  story,  won't 
you,   Murrie  ?      I   am    tired.      I    don't  mean 
165 


April's  Sowing 

leave   out   anything.      But    hurry   along   and 
don't  give  me  the  foot-notes." 

"  All  right,  dear.  The  final  point  is  that 
he  is  at  this  moment  in  a  sort  of  public  hid- 
ing. The  police  isn't  at  all  thorough,  you 
know,  in  following  up  that  sort  of  lawbreaker, 
any  more  than  at  home,  I've  heard  them  say, 
when  there's  a  prize-fight.  You're  all  right 
if  you  don't  go  about  too  openly,  and  are  not 
to  be  found  at  home,  for  a  while,  till  it  has 
blown  over.  The  ugly  part  in  this  case  is 
that  it  was,  as  far  as  I  can  make  out,  in 
earnest,  and  the  other  man  is  likely  to  be  on 
his  back  for  some  time.  He  was  the  one  to 
blame,  so  it  serves  him  right.  He  was  the 
challenging  party.  He  made  it  impossible 
for  Holmes  not  to  fight  him,  so  Percy  says. 
Why  don't  you  ask  me  what  it  was  all  about, 
Nelly?  I  thought  you  would  be  so  inter- 
ested ! " 

"  I  am,  of  course.     What  was  it  about  ?  " 
"  A  woman,  my  dear  !     Doesn't  the  plot 
thicken  ?     A   beautiful   lady   with   red    hair. 
1 66 


April's  Sowing 

Percy  told  us  all  about  her.  An  artist,  who 
is  almost  noble,  or  quite  noble,  I  don't  know 
which.  I  forget  whether  there  was  a  von  in 
her  name.  It  is  Juliane  Wildermuth,  or 
Juliane  von  Wildermuth  —  but  that  point 
doesn't  affect  the  story.  They  are  an  excel- 
lent old  family,  anyhow,  in  reduced  circum- 
stances, and  the  mother  lets  part  of  her 
house,  and  one  of  the  daughters  paints  por- 
traits and  things  professionally.  And  Jack 
Holmes  had  lodgings  with  them.  And  so  it 
happened  that  the  other  man  grew  jealous, 
and  picked  a  quarrel  with  him.  His  jealousy 
was  all  nonsense,  very  likely  —  and  yet  in 
those  matters  one  can't  always  tell.  She  is  a 
great  deal  older  than  Jack,  ten  or  fifteen 
years  at  least,  but  of  course  that  in  reality 
never  makes  the  slightest  difference  in  the 
world.  And  she  is  such  an  interesting  crea- 
ture, a  regular  enchantress,  Percy  says.  He 
has  seen  her.  Every  one  in  Vienna  knows 
her  by  sight  and  reputation  ;  people  tell  one 
another  the  last  fantastic  thing  she  did  or 
167 


April's  Sowing 

said.  As  far  as  J.  H.  is  concerned,  I  dare 
say  all  there  is  to  it  is  that  she  thought  he 
had  a  picturesque  head,  and  as  he  was  con- 
veniently at  hand  painted  his  portrait  —  in 
character,  I  think  Percy  said.  It  was  exhib- 
ited, and  stirred  the  wrath  of  a  cast-off 
adorer,  who  sought  out  Cloverfield  John  and 
was  impudent  to  him.  And  now  perhaps  he 
wishes,  done  up  in  bloody  bandages,  that  he 
had  thought  twice  about  it.  I  was  awfully 
interested.  I  fairly  pumped  Percy  —  you 
know  how  it  is  when  you  are  away  from 
home  about  people  you  know  even  slightly 

—  and  tried  to  find  out  whether  he  himself 
thought  John  Holmes  —  Jack,  as  he  calls  him 

—  was  in  love  with  the  great  Juliane  —  that 
was   his    expression.       He    said,   4  Oh,    you 
know    about   Jack !      You    know    you    can 
never  tell  anything  about  him.'      But  the  two, 
owing  to  the  attention  everything  she  does 
attracts,  and  now  this  duel,  have  got  them- 
selves   very    much   talked    about.     And    she 
seems  entirely  careless  of  it.     She  is  rather 

1 68 


April's  Sowing 

grand,  as  Percy  describes  her,  and  does  very 
much  as  she  pleases,  and  laughs  at  what  will 
be  said,  and  keeps  a  tolerably  clear  name  in 
spite  of  all.  One  can't  help  rather  admiring 
her  —  I  am  just  quoting  Percy,  you  know. 
I  don't  think  I  admire  her  much  myself. 
Personally,  I  am  as  fond  as  can  be  of  unques- 
tionable, cold,  starlit  respectability;  and  ac- 
cording to  our  notions  she  certainly  deflects  a 
little.  That  is  to  say,  the  ideal  lady  couldn't 
bear  to  put  herself  in  a  dubious  light,  any 
more  than  Caesar's  wife.  Think,  for  instance, 
how  Ethel  would  look  upon  it." 

"  Darling  New-England  Ethel  !  "  mur- 
mured Nelly.  "  Is  there  any  more  to  your 
story  ?  "  She  stretched  and  yawned.  "  Your 
young  man  interests  me  very  mediocrely,  as 
that  Paris-American  painter-girl  would  say. 
There  is  nothing  more  to  it,  is  there  ?  Then 
good  night,  dear." 

"  Good  night,  sweetheart.  I  am  glad, 
though,  that  you  took  no  notice  of  his 
letters." 

169 


April's  Sowing 

For  a  moment  it  appeared  Nelly  had  not 
heard.  Presently,  she  said,  "  What  letters, 
Murrie  ?  " 

"  Why,  he  wrote  you  twice  a  week  for  a 
while,  didn't  he,  at  first  ?  " 

"Did  he?  What  a  memory  you  have 
got !  and  what  flair,  as  again  that  painter- 
girl  would  say."  Nelly  got  up  and  poured 
herself  a  glass  of  water.  "  I  am  glad  I  have 
never  tried  to  have  a  secret  from  you  !  "  she 
said,  in  the  air,  before  drinking;  and  after 
setting  down  the  glass,  querulously,  "  I  wish 
I  hadn't  taken  that  coffee  !  " 

"You  took  so  little.  That  much  can't 
keep  you  awake,  can  it  ?  " 

"  I  hope  not.  But  I  had  better  have  some- 
thing to  take,  in  case  it  should.  Put  some- 
thing sleepy  where  I  can  get  it,  won't  you  ? 
I  don't  want  to  spend  the  night  jumping 
sheep  over  a  fence." 

Nelly,  on  the  instant  of  waking,  groped  in 
her  mind  for  whatever  it  was  had  marked 
the  evening  before.  She  lay  still  a  while, 
170 


April's  Sowing 

and  gazed  at  a  spot  on  the  ceiling.  She 
heard  a  faint  noise  of  cards  shuffling  in  the 
next  room.  She  knew  that  it  was  Murrie 
playing  solitaire,  as  she  did  at  any  hour  of 
the  day  that  found  her  alone. 

Nelly  gave  a  dainty  audible  yawn.  Mur- 
rie came  in  and  kissed  her  with  a  cool  face,  and 
patted  her  with  gratefully  cool  hands,  and  took 
her  accustomed  seat  on  the  edge  of  the  bed. 

"You  have  slept !"  she  said. 

"  What  time  is  it  ?  " 

"Near  noon." 

"  Oh,  and  I  was  to  have  gone  there  at  ten. 
What  did  you  do  with  Percy  ?  Didn't  he 
come  ? " 

"  I  sent  him  away,  and  said  we  would  be 
over  in  the  course  of  the  day.  You  were 
sleeping  so  like  a  kitten,  I  couldn't  bear  to 
disturb  you.  I  feared  you  must  have  been 
obliged  to  take  a  powder." 

"  Is  it  pleasant  out  ?  " 

"  Heavenly ! " 

"  Murrie,  let  us  dress  ourselves  gayly,  and 
171 


April's  Sowing 

sally  lightly  forth,  as  Fluffy  says.  Let  us  go 
into  shops  and  spend  a  lot  of  money,  and 
cable  for  more.  Rubbing  against  Potters  and 
Lighters  has  undermined  all  my  principles. 
I  have  waked  up  world-without-end  weary  of 
being  stingy  and  poky  and  drab-colored.  I 
was  fast  getting  to  be  a  bookworm,  wasn't 
I,  Murrie  ?  A  musical  Mamsell,  a  regular 
Traumerei  girl !  I  was  well  started  down  the 
same  path  as  Pita.  When,  Potters  to  the 
rescue  !  Let  us  be  weeds  !  Let  us  be  jolly 
ignoramuses  !  Let  us  be  fat  rich  people ! 
We  will  get  a  bushel  of  flowers  for  Frau 
Ottilie,  and  hothouse  grapes,  and  take  a  box 
at  the  theatre,  and  have  champagne.  And 
let  us  buy  ourselves  some  stunning  clothes, 
and  hire  a  carriage,  and  drive  into  the  country, 
and  present  the  house  with  a  new  oilcloth  for 
the  front  entry,  and  Creschenz  with  a  cap." 

Murrie  crushed  Nelly  to  an  enthusiastic 
breast.  "  There  spoke  my  own  Cloverfield 
Nelly !  "  she  exclaimed.  «  Let's  !  " 

Nelly,  in  dressing,  paused  with  her  arms  in 
172 


April's  Sowing 

the  air.  "  How  queer  !  "  she  exclaimed,  and 
dropped  her  arms ;  then,  after  a  moment, 
focused  her  whole  intelligence  upon  adjust- 
ing the  black-velvet  bow  in  her  hair. 

She  came  into  the  sitting-room,  looking, 
more  than  she  had  long  done,  like  the  Nelly 
of  old  days.  Murrie,  seeing  her  pick  up  the 
books  in  daily  use,  and  order  them  in  the 
bookcase,  rose  to  help  her.  Nelly  stacked 
the  music  in  a  scrupulously  neat  pile,  and 
softly  let  down  the  piano-lid  over  the  keys. 

"  I  don't  see,"  she  said,  looking  about  the 
room,  ruffling  her  forehead,  and  at  the  same 
time  with  a  mechanical  gesture,  become  habit- 
ual with  her,  smoothing  it  out  with  the  back 
of  her  hand,  "  I  don't  see  how  I  have  man- 
aged to  be  such  a  dull  good  girl  for  such  a 
long  time,  do  you,  Murrie  ?  Was  it  like  me, 
I  ask  ?  I  have  been  working  almost  a  year 
and  a  half  like  a  girl  fitting  herself  to  be  a 
governess  —  " 

"I  know,  dear.  And  it  has  not  been 
wasted.  I  was  telling  Mrs.  Potter  what 


April's  Sowing 

wonders  you  have  accomplished.  I  may  as 
well  tell  you  now,  I  did  not  for  an  instant 
dream  that  you  would  keep  it  up  as  you  have 
done." 

"How  you  were  taken  in,  poor  Murrie 
dear,  in  your  pleasure-trip  to  Europe !  Never 
mind,  Pauline.  We  will  make  up  for  it !  " 
and  in  sudden  affectionate  pity  Nelly  stooped 
to  kiss  her. 

"Do  you  mean,"  asked  Murrie,  too  stag- 
gered to  keep  the  sneaking  joy  she  felt  out  of 
her  voice, "  that  you  aren't  going  on  with  your 
studies  ?  " 

"  Well,  not  to-day,  nor  yet  to-morrow.  It 
would  be  positively  crass  to  sit  down  and 
work  to-day.  The  contemplation  of  that 
happy  Florence  and  Percy  makes  it  seem  such 
rubbish,  —  doesn't  it  ?  —  to  be  a  4  grind,'  as 
the  boys  call  it.  I  am  going  to  take  a  rest 
on  what  little  laurels  I  have  already  gathered." 

"  I  see !  "  cried  Murrie,  as  one  upon  whom 
dawned  indeed  a  great  light ;  and  she  seemed 
to  be  answering  Nelly's  face  rather  than  her 
174 


April's  Sowing 

words.  "  I  knew  you  would  !  You  have 
thought  it  over,  and  are  going  with  them  for 
a  holiday.  I  am  so  glad  !  I  may  as  well  tell 
you  now  that  it  is  just  what  I  have  been  pray- 
ing for ! " 

"  Hold  on,  dear  !  Not  so  fast !  You  are 
mistaken.  I  don't  know.  I  am  not  at  all 
sure  what  I  shall  do.  I  am  not  sure  of  any- 
thing !  I  only  know  that  lessons  for  to-day, 
or  to-morrow,  or  the  day  after,  are  out  of  the 
question.  Not  Frau  Ottilie  herself  with  her 
hand  on  the  thunder-valve  could  make  me  do 
one  little  Aufsatz.  Florence  and  Percy  make 
Frau  Ottilie  seem  such  a  freak  !  I  am  going 
to  be  gay.  I  am  going  to  follow  my  natural 
bent  for  a  while.  I  feel  so  free,  so  free,  so 
free ! " 

If  Murrie  was  left  by  this  a  prey  to  con- 
tending hopes  and  fears,  it  was  not  for  long: 
within  the  week  Nelly  had  accepted  the  Pot- 
ters' invitation  to  accompany  them  to  Vienna 
for  their  supplementary  visit,  and  after  that  to 
London.  It  seemed  poetically  fitting  that  she 


April's  Sowing 

should  pass  through  Vienna,  flashing  like  a 
meteor,  furnishing  Report  with  ample  matter 
to  trumpet,  that  Cloverfield  John-Hector,  hear- 
ing, should  not  peradventure  harbor  mistaken 
notions  concerning  a  Nelly  of  the  Fish-pond, 
a  Nelly  of  the  Garden,  a  Nelly  Left  Behind 
Him. 

Her  brief  career  in  Vienna  was  not,  how- 
ever, what  she  had  imagined  and  intended. 
It  was  not  marked  by  the  assurance,  the 
splendor,  the  fine  spirits.  In  going  with  the 
Potters  to  parties  given  in  the  Anglo-Ameri- 
can colony,  she  had  often  to  overcome  an  un- 
familiar dread  ;  always  at  the  last  minute  she 
would  have  preferred  staying  away.  Her 
measure  of  social  success  was  of  a  very  dif- 
ferent sort  from  the  old  successes  at  home. 
It  amounted  to  little  more  than  this :  that 
those  who  had  seen  her  asked  others  whether 
they  had  seen  her  too.  She  was  remembered 
as  a  sweetly  pretty  American,  dressed  like 
an  angelic  fashion-plate,  whose  face,  touched 
when  in  repose  with  an  interesting  pensive- 
176 


rs  Sowing 

ness,  promised  more  than  her  conversation, 
wholly  unserious  and  earthy,  fulfilled. 

She  had  no  sooner  reached  Vienna  than  she 
would  have  liked  to  leave.  She  had  not  fore- 
seen that  any  emotion  would  attach  to  walk- 
ing streets  in  which  it  was  so  remotely  possible 
that  she  should  come  face  to  face  with  John- 
Hector;  or  that  having  walked  out,  keyed  to 
meet  that  contingency,  emotion  should  attach 
to  returning  indoors  without  a  chance  to  prac- 
tice the  appearance  of  gay  indifference  she  had 
in  store  for  it. 

She  could  not  but  marvel  at  the  impish  un- 
kindness  of  things  which  in  common  fairness, 
it  seemed  to  her,  should  have  remained  neutral. 
A  hat  and  coat  in  the  distance  would  show 
unmistakably  like  John-Hector's,  which  com- 
ing nearer  would  turn  into  a  ridiculous  coat 
and  hat,  worn  perhaps  by  an  undersized  shop- 
keeper, and  have  an  effect  of  mocking  as  they 
passed,  leaving  her  with  a  sense  of  cheapness 
and  soilure.  Then  an  umbrella,  a  mackintosh, 
and  boots  would  do  the  same :  they  flashed  to 

N  177 


April's  Sowing 

her  the  impression  that  they  were  his  before 
she  could  properly  see  them.  What  made 
this  so  objectionable  was  that  every  little  shock 
of  the  kind  was  marked  by  a  physical^  sensa- 
tion of  the  least  agreeable:  like  a  twist  of 
the  screw  to  her  heart,  succeeded  by  a  failure 
of  force  in  the  whole  organ. 

"  There  is  a  fate  about  it ! "  she  said, 
when  she  found  that  she  could  not  step  out- 
of-doors  without  being  startled  by  one  of 
these  ghostly  adventures. 

She  applied  the  same  phrase,  which  seldom 
fails  to  bring  a  sort  of  resignation,  to  the 
fact  that  never  in  her  presence  did  Percy 
speak  of  John-Hector  or  of  Juliane.  It  was 
not  with  intention,  she  knew,  that  he  did  not, 
that  no  one  ever  did :  it  happened !  She 
was  always  expecting  him  to  do  it,  wishing, 
yet  fearing  he  might,  and  prepared  to  leave 
the  room  if  he  should.  She  never  saw  him 
without  the  reflection  that  perhaps  he  had 
just  been  with  John-Hector,  and  neglected 
to  mention  it.  Whenever,  walking  in  com- 
178 


April's  Sowing 

pany,  they  passed  a  red-haired  woman,  Nelly's 
heart  put  on  its  armor  of  readiness  to  hear, 
"That  is  Juliane  Wildermuth."  But  it  was 
never  said. 

When  the  time  to  depart  from  Vienna,  so 
longed  for  at  first,  was  at  hand,  Nelly  had  as 
lief  have  stayed.  It  mattered  very  little  to 
her  where  she  was,  she  told  herself.  Where- 
ever  she  went  her  heartful  of  disgust  must  go 
too.  She  had  reflected  a  great  deal  upon  her 
state ;  indeed,  had  brooded  over  the  thing 
that  had  happened  to  her  without  cessation, 
and  had  come  to  a  sufficiently  clear  thought 
about  it.  She  owned  to  it :  she  had  idealized 
such  a  poor  thing  as  a  man  ;  she  had  harbored 
an  illusion,  and  lost  it.  She  was  discovering 
how  strong  those  strange  things  are,  what 
deep  root  they  take.  She  must  discover  too 
how  long  it  takes  to  recover  from  the  loss  of 
one.  She  thanked  Heaven  she  was  of  a  cold 
nature,  and  not  one  to  persevere  out  of  meas- 
ure in  the  thought  of  a  man  who  did  not 
think  of  her.  But  for  a  time  certainly  she 
179 


April's  Sowing 

must  expect  nothing  but  that  her  thoughts, 
which  had  traveled  a  given  road  for  near  two 
years,  should  still  by  habit,  when  the  will  was 
nodding,  turn  to  it,  as  a  thirsty  flock  might 
go  down  to  the  same  place  to  drink  after  the 
spring  had  dried.  She  must  find  patience 
with  the  present  in  anticipating  the  view  she 
would  take  later  in  life  of  the  accident  that 
had  cut  short  a  visionary  relation  with  a  good- 
for-nothing.  She  had  been  a  fool ;  thereafter 
she  would  scarcely  err  in  the  same  direction. 
Meanwhile  the  point  to  which  references 
to  love,  met  in  books,  the  theater,  or  conver- 
sation, could  irritate  and  hurt,  was  at  each 
helpless  encounter  with  them  a  source  of 
angry  astonishment  to  her.  It  was  nothing 
less  than  nauseating,  this  old,  gray,  disreput- 
able, very  knowing  world,  filled  with  every 
sort  of  sin  and  meanness,  affecting  to  grow 
tender  over  a  pot  of  forget-me-nots,  over  a 
white  dove's  feather !  It  was  an  indecency. 
For  love,  any  above  that  of  beasts  in  the 
field,  was  a  gross  lie,  and  all  people  over  a 
180 


April's  Sowing 

certain  age  must  be  in  the  secret.  In  a  soci- 
ety so  constituted  there  was  nothing  for  it 
but  not  to  care;  and  until  she  reached  that 
state  of  callousness,  she  would  assume  the 
cheerfulness  she  hoped  in  time  to  feel.  For 
with  the  passing  of  the  faith  that  love  is  last- 
ing, delight  and  dignity  together  had  passed 
from  all  beautiful  things,  from  poetry,  music, 
nature,  and  human  relations;  and  lightness 
of  heart  had  apparently  been  involved  with 
these. 

One  day,  being  in  the  street  without  Mur- 
rie,  and  passing  a  picture-dealer's,  Nelly  or- 
dered the  carriage  to  stop,  went  in,  and  asked 
if  any  paintings  of  Juliane  Wildermuth's  were 
on  exhibition  there. 

There  were  not  any.  She  was  referred  to 
Miss  Wildermuth's  studio,  if  she  wished  to 
see  her  latest  work. 

The  day  that  was  to  be  their  last  in  Vienna 
arrived ;  they  were  to  spend  it  on  an  excur- 
sion. 

The  carriages  were  at  the  door ;  the  wraps 
181 


April's  Sowing 

had  been  put  into  them,  when  Nelly,  who 
was  fastening  her  gloves,  pulled  them  off,  and 
sat  down,  saying  to  Murrie,  "  I  don't  want 
to  go  !  I  am  not  going  !  You  must  all  go 
without  me !  " 

Murrie  ceased  breathing,  the  better  to  look 
at  her. 

"  Don't  make  a  whole  affair  of  it,  dear, 
will  you  ?  "  said  Nelly,  with  a  faintly  formi- 
dable air,  while  she  steadily  returned  her 
friend's  look ;  "  I  simply  don't  want  to  go, 
or  yet  to  explain,  or  yet  to  have  you  stay  at 
home  to  see  that  I'm  all  right,  or  yet  to  have 
any  one  come  and  see  what  is  the  matter  and 
whether  sympathy  is  needed.  What  I  want 
is  to  sit  exactly  where  I  am,  and  to  have  you 
go  along  and  not  keep  them  waiting,  and  say 
merely  that  at  the  last  moment  I  didn't  want 
to  go.  You  needn't  say  I  have  a  headache 
unless  you  particularly  wish  to.  Can't  I 
have  a  whim  pure  and  simple  once  in  a  long 
while,  and  the  luxury  of  indulging  it  ? 
Thank  Heaven,"  she  gave  forth  with  dark 
182 


April's  Sowing 

intensity,  "  there's  no  law  forces  people  to  go 
to  perpetual  parties  !  " 

"  You  are  in  need  of  a  little  rest,"  said 
Murrie,  softly.  "  You  have  certainly  been 
overdoing.  I  understand  your  feelings  per- 
fectly. They  are  natural,  and  you  are  quite 
right.  It  will  do  you  much  more  good  to 
have  a  quiet  day  before  starting  on  that  tire- 
some journey.  Only,  I  am  going  to  stay 
with  you." 

"  Not  for  the  world,  Murrie  !  With  all 
your  kindness,  you  see,  dear,  you  are  making 
a  situation,  just  as  I  was  imploring  you  not 
to.  If  you  would  just  go  with  the  others,  and 
let  me  do  as  I  have  a  mind  !  " 

"  I  will !  "  said  Murrie,  without  more  ado. 

She  wondered,  as  she  left,  whether  she  had 
witnessed  a  simple  exhibition  of  nerves,  or 
whether  Nelly  had  a  reason  for  not  wishing 
to  go.  She  thought  it  possible  that  Nelly 
should  prefer  not  being  thrown  with  the  be- 
sieging Percy  as  the  excursion  would  have 
thrown  them,  and  fitting  all  that  had  come 
183 


April's  Sowing 

under  her  observation  to  that  conclusion,  let 
her  curiosity  rest. 

But  Nelly  had  had  no  clear  idea  in  doing 
what  she  did.  The  fact  had  struck  her  with 
sudden  force  that  it  was  her  last  day  in 
Vienna.  She  had  dreaded  putting  the  admin- 
istration of  it  out  of  her  own  hands. 

There  was  a  thing  which  she  had  con- 
stantly been  imagining  herself  doing,  yet  had 
not,  so  far,  come  near  resolving  to  do.  The 
thought  of  it,  whether  colored  with  desire  or 
repugnance,  had  been  an  obsession.  She  was 
no  nearer  now  than  ever  to  a  resolve,  the  fruit 
of  reflection,  but  the  shortness  of  her  time 
seemed  to  precipitate  her  upon  action. 

When  Nelly  had  decided  —  as,  after  sitting 
an  hour  or  more  watching  her  finger  follow 
into  all  its  intricacies  the  pattern  in  the  table- 
cloth, she  did  decide  —  to  invest  a  blind  im- 
pulse with  the  dignity  of  a  deliberate  move,  a 
world  of  uneasy  sensibilities  dropped  to  sleep 
within  her. 

In  climbing  certain  stairs  that  day,  she 
184 


April's  Sowing 

went  with  an  assured  step ;  she  was  to  her- 
self a  young  lady  merely  who  goes  to  look 
at  pictures  in  a  private  studio,  as  it  is  not 
uncommon  to  do. 

She  bore  in  her  mind  a  fragmentary  image 
of  all  that  was  about  to  pass.  She  intended 
to  stay  a  moment  only.  She  wished  with  her 
own  eyes  once  to  see  Juliane  Wildermuth, 
not  for  the  common  satisfaction  of  a  present 
curiosity,  but  to  provide  against  the  discom- 
fort it  might  be  ever  after  not  to  know  in  the 
least  what  she  was. 


185 


As  she  stopped  to  take  breath  at  the  top 
of  the  stairs,  she  speculated  calmly  regarding 
the  mood  in  which  she  would  presently  be 
descending  them. 

She  knocked  at  a  door.  With  the  super- 
ficial half  of  a  dual  consciousness,  she  reflec- 
ted upon  the  studio  not  being  in  Miss  Wil- 
dermuth's  family  mansion,  of  which  the  noble 
186 


April's  Sowing 

mother  let  some  part  to  students ;  but  in  a 
building  which  she  shared  with  other  artists. 

For  a  long  moment  nothing  happened. 
Nelly  thought  she  would  turn  and  run  for 
dear  life.  What  was  she  doing  here  ?  It 
seemed  to  her  suddenly  that  she  had  not  come 
of  her  own  free  will — But  before  she  had 
stirred  she  heard  footsteps. 

She  fixed  startled  eyes  upon  the  door,  men- 
tally conjuring  up  the  figure  on  the  otherside: 
an  insignificant  character,  please  God!  who 
would  say  that  Miss  Wildermuth  was  not  in. 

The  door  opened.  A  woman  in  an  apron 
that  covered  her  from  her  neck  to  her  feet 
stood  in  the  small  antechamber  formed  inside 
the  door  by  a  screen  and  draperies.  In  its 
doubtful  light,  her  hair  was  of  no  color.  After 
a  glance  at  Nelly,  she  took  a  paint-brush  from 
her  mouth,  and  added  it  to  a  sheaf  in  her  left 
hand. 

"  Fraulein  Wildermuth  ?  "  inquired  Nelly. 

"  I  am  she !    Come  in,  I  pray.     I  beg  your 
pardon  for  keeping  you  waiting.     I  thought  I 
187 


April's  Sowing 

knew  who  was  knocking,  and  without  cere- 
mony I  called  4  walk  in.'  As  no  one  entered, 
I  came  to  look." 

Some  portion  of  Nelly's  brain,  not  en- 
grossed in  taking  account  of  Juliane's  voice, 
wondered  that,  listening  acutely,  she  should 
not  have  heard. 

She  followed  Miss  Wildermuth.  In  her 
first  inspiration  of  the  studio  air,  she  detected 
through  a  delicate  sweetness  of  lilacs  the  un- 
mistakable taint  of  cigarette  smoke.  She 
paused  on  coming  from  behind  the  screen, 
and  looked  about  as  the  stranger  feels  privi- 
leged to  do  in  such  a  place.  She  exclaimed, 
after  a  moment,  with  a  candor  of  almost  rus- 
tic freshness — inevitably  so  young  an  actress 
overdid  her  part  at  first — yet  a  little  as  if  she 
forced  the  words  over  a  barrier  of  constraint, 
"  How  beautiful  !  " 

It  was  like  most  studios,  but  furnished  and 

arranged  with  more  than  common  felicity.  In 

portions   it  partook    of  the   pretty  woman's 

boudoir,    as   in  a    nook    which    contained    a 

1 88 


April's  Sowing 

couch  rich  in  pillows,  and  a  great  Venetian 
mirror.  Many  paintings  were  in  view;  a  few 
in  sumptuous  frames,  as  they  had  come  home 
no  doubt  from  exhibitions ;  but  the  greater 
part  unframed  and  set  wherever  there  was 
available  space. 

Juliane  had  gone  across  the  room  to  an 
easel,  and  was  unbuttoning  her  apron,  which 
fastened  at  the  back  and  was  not  to  be 
quickly  managed.  While  she  did  this  she 
could  look  freely  at  Nelly,  who  with  a  very 
young-seeming  sort  of  awkwardness — not 
usual  in  her,  but  she  was  not  usually  troubled 
with  the  knowledge  of  an  ulterior  motive — 
was  looking  at  things  on  the  wall. 

"I  went  to  a  picture-dealer's  the  other  day," 
Nelly  said,  in  a  bare-sounding  tone,  "  and 
there  I  was  told  to  come  here  if  I  wished  to 
see  your  work.  I  thought  from  that  you 
must  allow  people  to  visit  your  studio.  I  am 
going  from  Vienna  very  soon.  I — I  want  a 
few  pictures  to  take  home." 

"  And  I  who  had  begun  to  hope  since  you 
189 


April's  Sowing 

entered  "  said  Juliane  with  a  laugh  of  unex- 
pected quality,  "  that  you  were  come  to  have 
your  portrait  painted!"  Following  upon 
Nelly's  hesitating  phrases,  her  delivery  had  an 
effect  of  more  than  common  freedom  and 
rapidity. 

"  Oh  no ! "  Nelly  shook  her  head,  shot  a 
swiftly  searching  glance  at  Juliane,  and  turned 
half  away  to  look  at  a  picture  hung  near  the 
ceiling. 

Nelly  had  spared  no  pains  with  her  appear- 
ance; Nelly  was  a  fresh  vision  of  millinery 
triumph.  But,  even  more  arresting  than  her 
hat,  her  cheek  was  in  delicate  flower,  her  hair 
was  sunny,  her  eye  beamed  with  a  clear  ray. 
She  was  in  effect  like  a  bit  of  the  spring  come 
into  the  coldly-lighted  studio,  incarnate  in  a 
fashionable  girl.  It  might  have  been  Nelly's 
preference  at  this  date  to  look  world-wise, 
returned  from  all  illusion,  and  a  little  bored ; 
but  such  conditions  cannot  be  managed  in  a 
day  :  her  features  had  a  native  air  of  girlish 
goodness  she  could  not  dispose  of  by  wishing. 
190 


April's  Sowing 

The  line  of  her  lifted  profile  was  simple  and 
sweet. 

She  had  not  once  looked  frankly  and  di- 
rectly at  Juliane,  yet  had  gathered  a  definite 
impression  of  her. 

"  How  people  lie  !  "  she  thought. 

The  expression  "  an  enchantress "  had 
created  in  her  young  mind  an  image  very 
different  from  the  woman  here ;  the  word 
beautiful  applied  to  her  she  had  taken  in  its 
obvious  sense.  Now,  Nelly  thought  her  the 
very  opposite  of  beautiful,  and  could  not 
imagine  any  one  with  such  a  face  fascinating 
anybody.  Juliane  did  not  seem  to  her  at  all 
the  sort  of  person  one  has  to  reckon  with. 
The  strain  of  the  moment  was  curiously 
eased  to  her  by  this,  but  the  situation  gener- 
rally  cheapened.  While  all  her  interior  self- 
possession  returned,  and  she  no  longer 
dreaded  the  interview,  she  conceived  a  great 
wish  to  cut  it  short,  go  home  and  try  to  for- 
get the  whole  distasteful  matter,  proved  so 
trivial.  • 

191 


April's  Sowing 

"  Dirty  work  !  "  remarked  Juliane,  looking 
at  her  hands  and  the  edges  of  her  sleeves. 
She  had  rid  herself  of  her  paint-soiled  apron 
and  hung  it  on  the  easel.  She  appeared  in  a 
black  walking  skirt  and  a  loose  silk  bodice  of 
jumbled  oriental  colors,  among  which  pre- 
dominated a  striking  light  yellow. 

She  approached  Nelly,  who  stood  examin- 
ing a  picture. 

"Did  I  disturb  you  at  your  work  ?  "  Nelly 
asked  her,  to  say  something;  and  from  the 
necessity  of  the  moment  rested  on  her  for  a 
polite  half-second  a  wide  blue-gray  eye,  void 
of  all  expression. 

"  Ah,  inevitably  !"  said  Juliane.  "You 
will  pardon  me,  but  when  one  comes  in  the 
forenoon — the  working  time  of  day,  you 
know  !  But  do  not  distress  yourself.  I  grudge 
it  not  to-day.  My  model  has  failed  me.  I 
was  painting  flowers,  the  great  lilacs  you  see 
there.  And  I  do  not  love  much  to  paint 
anything  but  the  figure.  And  I  do  not  love 
working  in  such  fine  weather." 
192 


April's  Sowing 

"  I  am  sorry  I  broke  into  your  morning," 
said  Nelly  stiffly.  She  added,  "  It  is  a  very 
beautiful  day." 

Juliane  was  now  at  her  side,  looking  at  the 
same  picture.  Out  of  the  corner  of  her 
eye,  Nelly  could  see  the  broad  mass  of  light 
copper-color  that  was  her  hair,  and  the  white- 
ness below  it  of  her  face.  A  suspicion 
thrilled  her  that  it  might  be  the  very  unusual- 
ness  and  irregularity  of  her  features  that  was 
called  their  charm  and  made  their  reputa- 
tion. 

She  drew  away,  smothered,  in  spite  of  her- 
self, by  this  proximity ;  and  for  the  liberty  to 
look  now  squarely  and  steadily  at  Juliane, 
began  to  talk. 

"  I  am  no  judge  whatever  of  pictures,"  she 
said.  At  the  sound  of  those  time-honored 
words,  she  could  not  help  laughing,  and  her 
voice  after  it  flowed  more  naturally,  "  Don't 
be  afraid  !  I  am  not  going  to  add  that  I  know 
what  I  like.  What  I  was  intending  to  say  is 
that  as  I  know  nothing  whatever  of  pictures, 


April's  Sowing 

no  opinion  of  mine  on  them  could  be  of  inter- 
est to  you,  and  I  will  not  take  the  chance  of 
saying  by  way  of  compliment  the  exact  things 
that  would  be  repulsive  to  you.  I  was 
personally  acquainted  with  a  painter  last 
summer.  It  taught  me  discretion." 

"  Oh,  ne  vous,  genez  pas"  interrupted  Ju- 
liane,  in  her  rapid  hemming-in  way,  with  a 
gayety  that  savored  of  sarcasm,  as  indeed,  it 
seemed  to  Nelly,  did  her  voice  itself,  "if  you 
have  the  least  desire  to  say  anything  pleasant 
about  my  pictures !  I  will  make  every  al- 
lowance !  Your  friend  the  painter  had  surely 
a  much  stronger  character  than  I !  What  a 
strong  character !  I  had  rather,  I  assure 
you,  be  praised  for  my  defects  than  not 
praised ! " 

"Well,  then,"  said  Nelly,  between  sober 
and  uncertainly  laughing,  and  with  a  little  ef- 
fect of  making  a  retort,  "  your  pictures  may 
be  infectious,  as  that  painter  used  to  call  things, 
but  I  like  them.  To  my  ignorant  eyes  they 
are  exceedingly  beautiful.  I  shall  be  greatly 
194 


April's  Sowing 

obliged  to  you  if  you  will  show  me  all  you 
have." 

"  I  am  at  your  orders !  "  said  Juliane. 

When  next  Juliane  spoke,  in  commentary 
on  the  picture  she  was  showing,  she  spoke  in 
English,  unhesitating,  accurately  pronounced 
English,  very  nearly  perfect.  Nelly  felt  the 
heat  rising  into  her  face.  It  might  have  been 
considered  a  piece  of  affability,  this ;  but 
Nelly,  with  the  effect  of  her  hostess's  per- 
sonality strong  upon  her,  did  not  take  it  for 
one,  nor  yet  lay  it  to  inadvertence.  Her 
childish  first  impulse  was  to  continue  stub- 
bornly speaking  German,  thereby  crudely  to 
convey  that  if  her  German  was  not  always 
ready  and  felicitous,  she  at  least  thought  it 
no  worse  than  her  neighbor's  English.  But 
beside  the  fact  that  this  would  have  been  at- 
tempting to  sustain  a  difficult  position,  Nelly 
descried  an  advantage  in  the  opportunity  to 
express  herself  in  her  own  tongue. 

"  How  glad  I  am  that  you  speak  English ! " 
she  said  suavely;  "I  wish  I  had  known  at 
'95 


April's  Sowing 

first,  and  not  made  myself  ridiculous  by  at- 
tempting your  dear  jaw-breaking  language — " 

"  I  divined— I  guessed,  as  you  would  say 
that — it  would  be  a  relief  to  you." 

"  Oh,  no  !  I  should  not  say  guessed  there. 
That  is  where  an  English  person  would  say 
guessed — where  it  means  the  same  as  di- 
vined. We  only  use  guess  improperly,  you 
know." 

"  I  should  have  remembered. — Do  you 
recognize  this  spot  ?  "  she  asked,  abruptly 
holding  up  a  sketch,  as  if  with  it  to  shut  off 
more  of  these  inanities,  "  Fontainebleau  ?  " 

Nelly  wondered,  while  appearing  engaged 
with  the  sketch,  at  the  antagonism  she  felt 
between  this  Juliane,  who  could  by  no  means 
know  who  she  was,  and  herself.  The  sense 
of  their  mutual  hostility,  and  disgust  at  having 
allowed  herself  to  be  drawn  into  an  exchange 
of  rudeness,  had  made  her  heart  go  faster. 
She  wondered  what  ground  Juliane  had  had  to 
assume  with  a  stranger  from  the  moment  of 
setting  eyes  on  her,  that  tone  tinged  with 
196 


Afrit's  Sowing 

mockery.  Was  it  the  mere  attitude  of  the 
artist  toward  the  bourgeois  who  buys  ?  or  ra- 
cial dislike  ?  or  Continental  impatience  of  the 
American  who  travels  ?  or  the  objection  of 
the  clever  to  the  supposed  weak  of  wit  ?  or 
contempt  for  one  ten  years  younger  ?  or  de- 
sire to  humiliate  one  infinitely  prettier  ?  or 
the  simple  bad  instinct  of  certain  natures  to 
place  at  a  still  further  disadvantage  one  de- 
tected in  the  tangles  of  diffidence  ?  Or  was 
it  none  of  these,  but  an  unfortunate  quality 
of  voice  and  cast  of  feature  that  made  a  per- 
son appear  to  be  jeering  when  no  such  thought 
was  in  her  mind  ? 

Nelly  felt  a  need  to  provide  for  all  these 
possibilities,  barring  the  last ;  to  assert  her- 
self, to  remain  on  the  spot  until  she  had 
better  grasped  the  situation,  and  shown  that 
she  refused  to  be  browbeaten,  however  deli- 
cately. She  had  lost  sight  of  the  large  back- 
ground in  which  this  moment  was  but  a 

O 

patch ;  this  interview  had  merits  of  its  own, 

apart    from    its    relation   to   the  large  story. 

197 


April's  Sowing 

This  haughty  Juliane,  merely  as  woman,  must 
not  be  allowed  to  take  too  much  for  granted 
with  her,  insignificant  insect  as  she  might 
appear. 

So,  instead  of  rapidly  making  her  selection, 
and  taking  herself  into  an  atmosphere  where 
she  could  breathe  better,  Nelly  examined  the 
pictures  offered  to  her  with  a  forced  leisure- 
liness,  in  her  prattle  almost  inviting  Juliane's 
aggressive  phrases,  and  presenting  to  them  a 
sunny  glassy  surface  on  which  nothing  could 
take  hold ;  emerging  from  swamping  remarks 
as  if  she  shook  off  drops  from  herself;  exas- 
perating, in  the  manner  of  a  person  who  goes 
on  and  on  playing  small  trumps. 

She  thought  Juliane  considered  her  a  shade 
more  attentively  as  the  moments  passed.  It 
was  all  she  desired.  She  was  ready  to 
depart. 

Juliane  had  betrayed  in  the  course  of  this 

interchange    a  frank    admiration   for  Nelly's 

person,  almost  impertinent  in  its  expression, 

yet  not  ungenerous ;  and  a  tinge  of  cordiality 

198 


April's  Sowing 

had  found  its  way  at  last  into  her  manner. 
Nelly  was  inclined  by  these  circumstances  to 
attempt  looking  in  her  turn  with  a  just  eye 
upon  Juliane.  That  untidy  head,  she  allowed, 
might  be  fairly  called  picturesque. 

A  tiny  point  of  pain  started  burning  in 
Nelly's  heart  with  her  admission  that  the  effect 
of  originality  of  her  rival's  whole  person  was  in- 
teresting; and  the  apprehension  that  she  might 
be  in  truth  far  more  dangerous  than  she,  Nelly, 
had  the  cleverness  to  rightly  know.  She 
certainly  bore  herself  like  a  beautiful  woman^ 
and  that,  Nelly  was  well  aware,  goes  so  far ! 
Nelly  recognized  that  she  had  no  habit  of  the 
world  in  which  this  foreigner  moved,  nothing 
to  guide  her  in  her  judgments.  Juliane,  when 
she  was  not  engaged  in  snubbing  a  silly  little 
American,  when  she  was  in  her  proper  ele- 
ment, among  glittering  officers,  nobles,  diplo- 
mats, artists — students!  in  a  low-cut  black 
frock,  with  a  broad  rose  in  her  metallic  hair, 
talking  with  that  bold  abundance  on  every 
subject  under  the  sun,  possibly,  very  possibly, 
199 


April's  Sowing 

was  as  she  had  been  called  "a  great  enchant- 
ress." 

Nelly  wished  to  finish  quickly,  and  be  gone. 
She  had  been  paying  so  little  attention  to  what 
she  was  doing,  that  she  did  not  now  know 
which  of  the  pictures  to  take.  She  was  so 
confused,  she  could  not  make  an  instant 
application  of  will. 

"  Haven't  you  anything  else  ?  "  she  asked. 
"  They  are  all  so  lovely,  it  is  hard  to  choose. 
Have  I  seen  them  all  ?  What — what  is  the 
cine  over  there,  turned  to  the  wall  ?  It  looks 
more  than  most  of  the  others  the  right  size 
for  what  I  want,  to  fill  the  space  between 
two  windows.  Oh,  I  can  laugh  too !  I 
know  it  is  an  absurd  sort  of  measurement  to 
apply  to  works  of  art,  but  what  can  I  do  ? 
There  is  a  space  between  two  windows  which, 
other  things  being  equal,  I  should  like  filled. 
Wait*!  Let  me  help  you  to  turn  it  round." 

"  No,  no  !  Remain  sitting  where  you  are ! 
I  beg  you  will  not !  You  will  soil  your  gloves. 
It  is  light,  it  comes  easily  out  of  the  frame. 


April's  Sowing 

It  is  only  a  study.  I  will  show  it  to  you, 
although  I  know  it  cannot  be  what  you  want 
to  fill  your  space  between  two  windows. 
D'ailleurs,  it  is  not  for  sale. 

She  turned  the  canvas,  and  placed  it  upon 
the  easel. 

Nelly  looked ;  a  small  convulsion  of  nature 
took  place  in  her  breast.  Then  her  heart 
sank  away,  away,  seemed  to  touch  bottom, 
and  springing  upward,  started  on  a  plunging 
career  in  a  sea  of  heat.  With  the  soft  move- 
ment of  a  tall  flower  cut  at  its  root,  she 
dropped  backward  in  an  attitude  of  composed 
contemplation. 

She  made  no  comment;  she  looked.  When 
the  moment  had  come  in  which  it  must  seem 
proper  in  her  to  make  a  remark,  she  cleared 
her  throat  as  if  to  do  so ;  but  thereupon 
merely  changed  her  position,  and  continued 
scrutinizing  the  picture. 

Juliane  had  drawn  back  from  the  study, 
and  was  examining  it,  too.  There  was  a 
long  silence. 


April's  Sowing 

Nelly  gazed  in  deepening  wonder.  It  was 
unmistakably  a  portrait  of  John-Hector,  yet 
not  as  he  had  ever  appeared  to  her.  He 
stood  painted  as  another  woman  saw  him. 
Nothing  there  suggested  the  college  boy,  the 
good  fellow,  half-back  and  hurdler — he  did 
not  even  look  like  an  American.  He  was  in 
helmet  and  armor;  his  face,  without  losing 
its  individuality,  was  classically  beautiful ;  the 
artist  had  insisted  a  little  on  all  his  good 
points.  With  a  painful  interest,  Nelly  let 
her  eye  linger  on  the  sweeping  eyebrow,  the 
deep  chin,  the  intrepid  nose,  the  square 
under  lip,  trying  to  find  the  seat  of  the 
great  difference.  As  she  considered  the 
expression  of  noble  tenderness  investing  the 
heroic  features,  Nelly  thought  that  she 
might  be  looking  on  a  study  of  Hector  as 
he  bade  farewell  to  Andromache,  Hector  at 
the  moment  of  saying  words  which  she  had 
learned  by  heart,  and  often  repeated  while 
she  played :  "  Hector's  Liebe  stirbt  im  Lethe 
nicbt." 


April's  Sowing 

Nelly  felt  creeping  over  her  sickness  of  a 
kind  unknown  to  her  until  that  moment,  and 
the  unconcern  for  the  surrounding  world  that 
accompanies  nausea.  A  voice  started  up 
within  her,  crying  disorderly,  "  Is  it  possible ! 
Is  it  possible !  "  and  forced  itself  almost  to 
her  lips.  But  she  merely  hemmed  ;  she  made 
a  little  meaningless  gesture,  and  again  slightly 
changed  her  position  in  the  chair. 

She  had  stared  too  long  already  without 
breath  of  comment,  she  knew;  but  yet  she 
stared  on,  trying  with  a  sense  of  hurry  to 
make  that  stranger  resembling  John-Hector 
look  to  her  like  the  John-Hector  she  had 
known ;  give  her  again  for  a  moment  that 
sense  of  his  belonging  absolutely  to  her.  But 
the  young  hero  painted  by  another  would  not. 
With  a  morbid  impulse  to  taste  the  full  of 
a  horrible  sweet  agony  invading  her,  she 
left  her  chair,  approached  the  canvas,  and 
with  a  stiffened  face  peered  into  the  helmet- 
shadowed  face,  caring  very  little  for  the  in- 
stant what  appearance  she  made.  For  the 


April's  Sowing 

instant  only.  She  turned  to  Juliane  a  pair  of 
empty  eyes,  and  asked  in  a  light  tinny  voice, 
"  Is  it  a  fancy  head  ?  I  mean,  is  it  out  of 
your  own  imagination  ? " 

"  Now,  I  sincerely  hope "  said  Juliane, 
with  a  spited  emphasis,  "  that  there  is  no  one 
in  the  world  except  yourself  capable  of  asking 
me  such  a  question  as  that !  " 

"  Oh,  don't  mind  me  !  "  said  Nelly,  and 
laughed  a  shade  desolately  ;  "  and  be  sure  " 
she  pursued,  "  I  don't  feel  hurt !  I  am  going 
in  half  a  minute.  I  think,  if  it  is  agreeable  to 
you,  I  will  decide  on  that  one — and  that  one 
there,  perhaps — and  shall  we  say  that  other 
one  there  ?  " 

Juliane,  after  following  the  indication  of  her 
finger,  looked  attentively  at  Nelly  ;  then  made 
a  very  slight  movement  with  her  shoulders. 
"As  you  please  !  "  she  said.  But  she  added, 
after  a  moment,  as  if  flesh  and  blood  could  not 
let  it  pass  like  that,  "  I  hope  you  have  ob- 
served how  very  nearly  alike  ifi  subject  and 
treatment  are  the  three  you  have  chosen." 
204 


April's  Sowing 

"  Are  they  ?  "  asked  Nelly,  with  bewildered 
interest.  "  Ah,  well,"  she  added  tiredly,  "  it 
doesn't  really  matter  !  " 

"  Oh,  no,  naturally,"  said  Juliane,  with  a 
more  marked  movement  of  her  shoulders,  "  as 
it  is  a  case  of  filling  the  space  between  two 
windows." 

After  brief  discussion  what  disposition  to 
make  of  the  purchases,  Juliane  sat  down  at 
her  desk  to  take  the  American's  address  at 
home.  Nelly  dictated  her  name ;  when 
Cloverfield  followed  it,  Juliane's  pen  stopped 
in  the  air. 

"  Cloverfield,"  repeated  Nelly,  enunciating 
clearly. 

Juliane  looked  up  with  a  changed  expres- 
sion, and  fixed  her  eyes  upon  Nelly's  face. 

"  It  is  a  funny  name.  It  is  a  little  bit  of 
a  place,"  said  Nelly,  gazing  at  the  skylight ; 
"it  is  on  none  but  local  maps;  you  won't  have 
met  with  it  in  your  school  geographies  over 
here.  I  suppose  it  sounds  to  you  like  Para- 
dise for  Cows !  "  She  laughed  nervously. 
205 


April's  Sowing 

"  Go  right  ahead  !  Cloverfield  !  You  can't 
make  a  mistake.  It  is  spelled  just  as  it 
sounds." 

Juliane  without  a  word  bent  her  head  over 
her  desk,  and  the  sound  was  heard  of  her  pen 
scratching  on  the  paper. 

"  And  now  I  had  better  say  good  morning, 
Miss  Wildermuth.  There  isn't  anything 
else,  is  there  ?  I  know  I  have  taken  up  your 
time  unwarrantably.  I  beg  your  pardon,  and 
thank  you  again  so  very  much." 

"  Oh,  not  at  all !  "  said  Juliane,  in  a  voice 
altogether  different  from  her  voice  before. 
Rising,  she  stood  with  one  hand  on  the  sheet 
of  paper  with  the  address,  and  looked  down 
at  it.  She  did  not  offer  to  show  Nelly  to  the 
door;  Nelly  lingered  a  moment,  civilly,  sup- 
posing there  was  still  something  to  be  said. 
As  she  stood,  half  waiting,  she  considered  the 
point  of  her  parasol,  with  which  she  goaded 
the  point  of  her  shoe.  She  glanced  up  after 
a  moment  for  the  reason  of  this  pause,  and 
found  Juliane  looking  at  her  with  a  curious 
206 


April's  Sowing 

effect  of  intensity.  It  was  plain  that  there 
still  was  something  to  be  said. 

"  Is  there  anything  more  we  ought  to  think 
of?  "  Nelly  asked,  looking  around  the  room  as 
if  for  a  hint.  "  I  always  feel  as  if  I  were 
forgetting  the  most  important  thing  of  all. 
But  you  know  my  hotel.  I  will  send  you  a 
check  from  there  this  afternoon." 

"  How  long  do  you  think  to  remain  in 
Vienna?"  asked  Juliane. 

"  We  expect  to  leave  to-morrow  morning. 
But  expecting  to-day  really  lays  no  obligation 
on  to-morrow.  Did  you  ask  for  any  special 
reason  ?  It  amounts  to  this  :  We  shall  go  as 
soon  as  I  am  ready." 

"  Oh,  you  Americans ! "  exclaimed  Juliane, 
with  a  laugh  that  did  not  prevent  her  words 
from  having  the  effect  of  being  cast  up  by  an 
explosion  of  impatience ;  "  especially  the 
young  girls ! " 

"  What  is  the  matter  with  us  ? "  asked 
Nelly,  and  she  turned  astonished  eyes  full  on 
Juliane  the  better  to  interpret  her  exclama- 
207 


April's  Sowing 

tion.  Their  glances  crossed,  then  Nelly 
looked  elsewhere.  The  blood  rushed  into 
her  cheeks ;  she  was  possessed  of  a  nervous 
feeling  that  in  a  moment  she  should  not  be 
accountable  for  what  she  did  or  said.  It  was 
the  insane  irritation  Juliane  allowed  to  show 
in  her  face  which  communicated  itself,  as  by 
an  electric  flash,  to  Nelly,  and  coming  upon 
the  strain  of  the  trying  interview  excited  her 
to  the  verge  of  shaking. 

Juliane  took  three  strides  forward,  then 
three  strides  back,  with  the  grand  movement 
of  a  lioness  rampant,  and  tossed  her  head  with 
the  coruscating  mane. 

"  Heaven,  earth  and  all  the  people  on  it," 
she  said,  "  time,  eternity,  nature,  art,  express- 
trains,  Mr.  Worth  and  the  Bank  and  I  my- 
self with  my  imbecile  pictures — all,  all  were 
made  for  the  purpose  of  serving  the  whim  of 
the  young  American  female  of  nineteen  ! " 

Nelly  did  not  speak  at  once  ;  she  wondered 
a  little  wildly  whitherward  they  were  tending. 
Then,  with  a  sudden  letting  go  of  herself,  she 
208 


April's  Sowing 

slipped  into  a  current  she  had  for  some  time 
felt  tugging  at  her ;  in  a  mood,  she  too,  to 
stride  up  and  down,  superbly;  feeling  a  dis- 
like, she  too,  to  parting  from  the  other  woman 
before  they  had  seen  with  greater  clearness 
into  each  other.  She  felt  awaked  in  her 
a  primeval  savage  something  which  sug- 
gested what  glorious  delight  might  be  in 
wiping  by  her  own  unaided  industry  this 
troublesome,  arrogant,  anti-pathetic  neighbor 
forever  from  the  face  of  the  earth.  But  she 
stood  tranquilly,  looking  cool,  and  far  from 
primeval.  She  said,  with  a  little  drawl  in  her 
voice — not  intended,  the  effect  of  her  effort 
to  keep  it  steady — "  Heaven  and  earth,  if  you 
choose — train  sand  Worth  and  banks,  of  course 
— but  how  has  America  in  my  person  affected 
you  except  as  you  might  wish?  You  want 
to  dispose  of  your  pictures,  don't  you  ? " 

Juliane  had  returned  to  her  desk,  and  was 
looking  down  at  the  paper  on  which  she  had 
written  Nelly's  address. 

"  Cloverfield  !   Cloverfield  ! "  she  said. 
209 


April's  Sowing 

"  That  certainly  is  my  home  ! "  said  Nelly. 
"  That  is  certainly  where  my  father  and 
mother  are  at  this  moment  living ! " 

"Then  why,"  asked  Juliane,  impetuously, 
"  did  you  ask  me  if  that  picture  on  the  easel 
originated  in  my  own  mind  ? " 

"  Pray,  what  is  the  connection  ? "  said 
Nelly,  feeling  herself  turn  rigid,  and  her  eye 
dangerous. 

Juliane  looked  at  her  narrowly.  "  Be- 
cause," she  replied  after  a  moment,  more 
impetuously,  "  if  you  are  Miss  Nelly  Brown, 
of  Cloverfield,  you  know  that  face  at  least, 
at  the  very  least,  as  well  as  I  do." 

"What  makes  you  think  so  ? "  asked  Nelly; 
and  still  capable  of  control  over  her  eyebrows, 
she  raised  them.  "Who  is  it?"  she  sub- 
joined, and  with  an  affectation  of  deep  quiet 
went  to  the  easel,  and  gazed  on  the  study  of 
the  Trojan  warrior. 

"  Do  you  now  recognize  it  ? "  asked 
Juliane,  hard  beside  her.  "  Do  you  see  in  it 
on  looking  closer  a  good  friend  of  old  days?  " 


April's  Sowing 

Nelly  shook  her  head  somewhat  haughtily. 
"  No  ! "  she  said.  She  added,  looking  Juliane 
directly  in  the  face,  "  I  have  apparently  for- 
gotten him." 

Juliane  laughed  her  unfriendly  derisive 
laugh.  "Ah,  I  see !  I  understand  you ! 
You  have  done,  then,  I  must  tell  you,  the 
best  thing  that  there  remained  for  you  to  do." 

"You  speak  in  riddles,"  murmured  Nelly, 
and  walked  away  from  the  picture  toward  the 
door.  "  I  never  guessed  one  in  my  life.  Per- 
haps because  I  never  trouble  to." 

"Ah,  my  dear  young  lady,"  said  Juliane, 
without  following  her — how  loth  she  was  to 
let  her  go  appeared  in  that  withholding ;  but  it 
was  in  the  very  atmosphere  that  she  had  that 
on  her  heart  of  which  she  was  determined  to 
ease  it  in  this,  the  solitary  opportunity,  per- 
haps, of  a  lifetime — "Ah,  my  dear  young 
lady,  how  enviable  are  you  !  " 

"  No  doubt !  "  said  Nelly.  She  had  a  bod- 
ing sense  that  though  her  footsteps  were  di- 
rected toward  the  door,  she  should  not  so  soon 


April's  Sowing 

be  leaving  the  studio.  She  accepted  with  a 
bloodthirsty  acquiescence  Juliane's  plans  for 
her.  She  was  given  grace  at  this  point  for  an 
instant  to  know  fully  that  she  was  turning 
her  back  on  the  light  of  good  sense ;  by  its 
last  ray  she  apprehended  a  fantastic  quality 
this  scene  was  taking  on,  impossible,  she  would 
have  thought,  outside  of  a  cheap  comedy, 
an  unrealistic  novel ;  but  she  was  blind  to 
any  means  of  escaping  it,  if  indeed  she  were 
not,  in  the  incalculable  perversity  of  the 
blood,  purposely  shutting  her  eyes. 

"  Oh,  but  quite  more  than  you  can  know! " 
Juliane  continued. 

"  Hardly.  I  know  all  you  can  mean  !  I 
am  enviable  !  I  am  one  of  those  persons  of 
whom,  when  they  die,  every  one  says  they 
had  everything  to  live  for." 

"  Oh,  but  you  are  so  more  enviable  on 
account  of  what  you  have  not !  " 

"True.  I  know  that  too;  all  the  evils  I 
have  been  spared." 

"  It  must  be   such   a   satisfaction,"   irrele- 


April's  Sowing 

vantly  said  Juliane,  working  ardently  toward 
a  complete  opportunity  to  express  her  mind, 
"to  be  constituted  as  you  are  !" 

"  It  is,"  said  Nelly,  readily,  "an  undoubted 
blessing."  She  had  meant  merely  to  parry, 
but  now,  Juliane  hesitating,  she  continued 
the  engagement,  before  she  had  reflected, 
with  a  small  thrust  of  her  own.  "  But  you 
seem  to  know  a  great  deal  more  about  my 
constitution,  Miss  Wildermuth,  than  you  can 
have  divined,  unless  you  are  tremendously 
deep,  at  this  single  meeting !  " 

"  Oh,  I  know  you  perfectly !  You  are 
just  what  I  should  have  imagined  !  I  won- 
der I  did  not  recognize  you  on  the  instant ! 
I  did,  of  a  truth ;  not  in  the  individual,  but 
in  the  type." 

"  It  is  a  type  apparently  you  are  not  at 
pains  to  be  very  polite  to.  I  am  sorry,  but 
the  individual  is  going  home  without  waiting 
for  the  expression  of  your  whole  opinion." 
And  Nelly,  who  had  been  able  to  say  this 
laughingly,  should  here,  undoubtedly,  and 


April's  Sowing 

would,  have  made  for  the  open  streets,  but 
she  could  not  refrain  from  saying,  and  a  hurt 
tone  found  its  way  into  her  voice,  "Your 
opinion,  I  suppose,  has  been  gathered  from 
your  model  for  the  knight-in-armor  yonder. 
It  seems  a  pity,  in  the  abstract,  that  it  should 
be  a  bad  one.  Heroes  should  speak  well  of 
their  absent  friends." 

"  Ah,  I  was  waiting  for  you  there !  waiting 
for  you  to  admit  that  you  knew  den  Hector 
yonder! — I  do  not  know,  I  am  sure,  if  you 
know  who  I  am.  I  do  not  know  if  it  was 
pure  chance  that  brought  you  here." 

"What  do  you  mean?  I  told  you!  It  was 
the  picture-dealer  sent  me.  But  your  fame, 
undoubtedly,  if  you  mean  that — your  fame 
had  reached  me  long  before !  " 

"  Excuse  me,  but  I  am  going  to  be  very, 
very  frank  with  you.  You — you  belong  to 
the  sort  of  woman — the  sort  of  woman  I 
detest!  There,  at  last!  That  is  what  I 
have  been  hoping  there  would  offer  some 
natural  conversational  opportunity  for  saying 
214 


April's  Sowing 

to  you  !  "  said  Juliane,  possessed  with  a  quiet 
fury,  yet  keeping  up  a  feint  of  laughing  that 
for  a  space  prevented  Nelly's  grasping  the 
whole  intention  of  what  she  heard.  "There, 
it  has  done  me  good !  I  feel  much  lighter. 
Oh,  take  for  granted  that  I  know  all  about 
you — we  may  as  well  be  frank  with  each 
other  !  Or,  say  it  is  merely  your  type  that  I 
know :  I  detest  you  for  all  the  deliberate 
harm  it  is  in  you  to  do,  with  your  appearance 
of  a  sugar  angel !  Yes,  for  all  your  cold, 
beastly  selfishness,  your  colossal  vanity — yet 
so  petty  !  You  banal,  little,  small-clawed, 
predatory  bird !  You  cheap  flirting-doll ! 
The  kind  of  woman  I  am  detests  the  kind 
you  are,  as  a  being  that  can  feel  and  suffer 
and  compassionate,  detests  one  who  can  do 
none  of  those,  but  with  supreme  composure 
impose  tortures  on  such  much  nobler  beings 
than  herself.  Oh,  we  know  quite  well  of 
what  we  are  talking  !  Always  I  have  longed 
to  have  you  before  me,  to  be  able  to  tell  you 
what  I  think  of  you.  A  thief,  a  creature  of 
215 


April's  Sowing 

the  streets,  is  respectable  by  the  side  of 
you!" 

Nelly,  pale,  heard  with  open  mouth  ;  she 
here  tried  to  swallow,  but  her  throat  was 
paralyzed.  She  could  not  have  uttered  a 
sound,  shocked  as  if  physically  by  a  pelting 
shower.  Nothing  she  had  known  in  her 
life  had  prepared  her  for  this. 

"That  stupid,  empty  prettiness  !  "  said  Ju- 
liane  rabidly,  no  longer  taking  pains  to  leaven 
her  remarks  with  laughter;  "You  think  it 
everything  necessary  in  this  world  to  look 
like  a  little  genre  picture,  like  a  colored  plate 
in  a  fashion-book !  When  you  find  that 
such  small  means  enable  you  to  deal  fate  and 
heartbreak — men  are  such  fools,  after  all,  and 
such  children  ! — you  arrange  yourself  with  a 
holy  calmness  to  see  to  just  how  many,  and 
to  just  what  point.  Truly,  women  like  you 
should  be  suppressed — they  cast  too  great  dis- 
credit on  the  rest.  But  why  do  I  rail  ?  Na- 
ture equals  these  matters,  triumphantly.  You 
have  your  due  recompense  in  the  end.  Hearts 
216 


April's  Sowing 

win,  after  all,  finally,  always,  against  mere 
complexions !  We  are  the  better  appor- 
tioned, after  all,  who  have  hearts !  " 

"  I  have  nothing  at  all  to  say  to  all  this," 
now  interrupted  Nelly,  hurriedly.  "  No 
ma'am,  no  !  "  she  raised  her  voice  and  one 
gloved  hand — "  please  let  me  speak  and  take 
my  leave.  I  do  not  choose  to  be  spoken  to 
in  this  way.  I  have  not  the  advantage  of  a 
temper  like  a  man-eating  bulldog  which  I  can 
spring  upon  persons  whose  existence  annoys 
me.  No,  pardon — it  is  my  turn  !  I  have  not 
understood  the  application  of  much  that  you 
have  said,  but  I  could  not  be  mistaken  in  your 
tone.  You  can  hardly  expect  me  to  stand 
here  and  take  more  insult  from  you.  It  must 
seem  interesting,  though,  upon  reflection,  to 
you  as  to  me — "  in  spite  of  all  effort  to  keep 
it  firm,  Nelly's  voice  here  shook  perceptibly — 
"  that  your  grounds  for  the  abuse  you  have 
thought  you  had  a  right  to  heap  upon  me 
must  have  been  derived  from  the  person  there, 
our  friend  in  the  helmet,  my  treatment  of 
217 


April' 's  Sowing 

whom  you  have  seemed  to  intimate  has  not 
been  fair — or  else  I  have  not  understood  you 
at  all,  and  you  have  struck  at  me  blindly,  at 
a  type,  as  you  say.  I  could  hardly  give  less 
than  he  deserved,  could  I,  to  one  capable  of 
giving  me  the  character  he  seems  to  have 
given  me  with  you  ?  " 

11  He  ?  "  came  in  a  great  contralto  note, 
"  He  has  never  once,  so  far  as  I  can  remem- 
ber, spoken  your  name  !  "  Juliane's  tone 
and  looks  expressed  a  curious  exaltation. 
u  Never !  Believe  me  or  not.  He  came  to 
our  house,  but  newly  landed  from  the  New 
World,  with  the  most  joyous  light  of  hope  in 
his  eyes  that  I  had  ever  seen.  I  observe  faces, 
you  know;  it  is  my  trade.  He  seemed  to 
me,  at  my  first  sight  of  him,  the  ideal  of 
strong  youth.  He  plunged  into  his  work 
with  the  gay  vigor  of  a  giant  who  sees  the 
goal  and  the  prize  ahead.  Then,  in  a  few 
months,  his  face  was  altogether  changed.  I 
knew  by  the  instinct  that  does  not  deceive  that 
he  was  suffering  from  a  heart  trouble.  As  all 
til 


April's  Sowing 

that  had  come  to  change  him  had  come  since 
he  lived  under  our  eyes — for  he  has  been  as 
one  of  our  family — I  could  make  an  intelli- 
gent conjecture  concerning  it.  When  his  face 
had  grown  at  last  as  stonily  sad  as  it  seems 
possible  for  one  to  become,  I — for  I  have  a 
heart — decided  that  this  should  cease.  Yes, 
I  thought  it  time  to  put  an  end  to  his  exclu- 
sive preoccupation  with  a  girl  left  in  America, 
to  alleviate  the  torment  an  unknown  was 
pleased  to  put  him  to.  He  awakened — very 
slowly,  I  will  admit,  but  he  awakened — to 
feel  that  he  had  an  excellent  friend  closer  at 
hand.  I  had  determined  to  divert  him  ?  I 
do  not  take  a  determination  like  that  in  vain. 
Ah,  I  could  teach  you  something,  you  pretty 
young  woman  !  though  you  could  be  a  model 
to  me  in  coolness  and  caution,  in  governing 
one's  tongue  and  keeping  one's  temper.  I 
could  teach  you  to  sink  your  miserable  mesquin 
pride  in  the  happiness  of  smoothing  out  the 
creases  of  life  for  another.  That,  after  all, 
is  what  we  are  here  for,  we  women — and  so 
219 


April's  Sowing 

far  as  we  are  imperfect  lovers,  you  know,  we 
are  failures!  And  the  newest  woman  as  well 
as  the  most  ancient  in  her  heart  of  hearts 
knows  her  destiny.  And  so  it  will  be,  the 
same  with  all,  to  the  end.  Ah,  the  girl  in 
America  may  in  her  cold  little  vanity  think  to 
make  herself  more  prized  by  the  difficult 
height  at  which  she  suspends  herself — the 
woman  close  at  hand,  devoted,  self-forgetting, 
patie-nt,  will  not  be  far  in  the  wrong.  You 
come  late,  ma  toute  belle,  if  you  have  come  to 
take  him  back.  I  advise  you  not  to  attempt  it. 
Yet  you  can  scarcely  complain  of  inconstancy 
in  him.  You  are  the  fair  lady,  I  suspect, 
who  tossed  her  glove  to  the  lions  for  her 
cavalier  to  recover,  and  sat  safe  on  her  cush- 
ioned seat  watching  him.  But  you  know 
what  happened." 

"  Yes,  yes,  I  have  read  it.  But  I  thought 
you  said  just  now  that  he  had  never  spoken 
of  me.  What  then  should  you  know  of  the 
circumstances  ? " 

"But  I  did  not  say  that  I  had  not  taken 


Sowing 

pains  to  find  out !  Great  pains,  my  dear 
— great  pains  !  And  when  I  try,  I  promise 
you  it  is  to  some  purpose.  And  do  not  for- 
get that  we  have  lived  in  the  same  house." 

"  One  might  not  unnaturally  think — I 
judge  only  from  what  you  yourself  say — that 
you  had  not  been  above  spying." 

"  What  is  that  ? — It  was  not  necessary. 
He  told  me  whatever  I  wished  to  know  with- 
out suspecting  that  he  did  so  !  He  is  reserved 
enough,  in  all  truth,  but  in  the  end  is — 
twenty-three !  " 

"  No  doubt  he  would  be,  a  boy  like  that,  a 
baby  in  your  hands." 

"  You  are  intending  a  sneer,  I  understand. 
But  how  wasted  your  irony  !  Better,  you 
must  agree,  a  friend,  good  comrade  and  coun- 
selor, a  companion,  loyal  and  generous  and 
discreet  and  wide-minded,  than  a  tyrannical, 
selfish,  cold  little  bonne  amle  of  his  own  age. 
— Armer  Hector  ! "  Juliane  went  to  the 
picture,  and  stood  in  contemplation  before  it, 
her  face  retaining  the  passionate  heat  that 


April's  Sowing 

had  glowed  increasingly  in  it ;  she  shook  her 
head  with  an  effect  of  profound  feeling. 
"  How  noble  and  simple  he  is  !  Really  a 
wonderful,  u  rare,  an  exquisite  nature,  totally 
out  of  place  in  this  prosaic  age.  He  is  like 
the  young  hero  of  an  old  epic.  I  grow  angry 
still  again,  and  my  heart  must  ache  a  little, 
remembering  those  earliest  days.  What  I 
first  observed  was  that  his  letters  were  written 
on  two  kinds  of  paper.  How  youthful !  My 
curiosity  was  piqued  :  in  long  common  en- 
velopes to  persons  of  his  own  name,  and  to 
Miss  Nelly  Brown  of  Cloverfield  on  very 
much  finer  paper,  the  envelopes  square,  and 
not  gummed — sealed  with  wax,  and  perfumed 
wax  !  And  he  wrote  to  her  twice  a  week  for 
a  while,  but  I  could  never  among  his  letters 
see  one  that  looked  like  an  answer.  There 
is  a  something  about  a  love-letter,  as  you  know. 
Most  of  those  he  received  had  a  sisterly  air 
and  a  strong  calligraphy.  And  he  used  to 
wear  a  rose  in  his  buttonhole.  As  far  as  you 
saw  him,  you  knew  that  he  adored  some  one. 


April '  s  Sowing 

And  there  was  a  photograph  of  a  mysterious 
hand  holding  flowers,  and  by  his  bedside,  as 
if  it  had  been  a  book  of  devotion,  a  dictionary, 
marked  on  the  fly-leaf  "  Nelly  Brown,  Clover- 
field."  It  showed  great  unthrift,  I  must  say, 
in  the  girl  who  let  so  much  ardor  die  for  want 
of  an  occasional  kind  word.  What  a  fool, 
let  pass  her  cruelty !  Well,  well,  Heaven 
decrees  that  one  should  not  die  of  such 
things.  All  is  remedied  now.  He  takes  life 
pleasantly  again  ;  but  that  is  not  his  maiden's 
fault — it  is  to  the  praise  of  some  one  kinder. 
Indeed,  why  have  I  been  making  myself  all 
this  bad  blood  ?  I  do  not  believe,  after  all, 
that  you  have  come  here  with  any  thought  of 
him.  It  would  not  accord  with  the  rest  of 
your  conduct.  I  really  think  it  was  chance 
that  brought  you,  and  that  you  did  not  even 
take  the  trouble  to  let  him  know  you  were  in 
the  city.  Perhaps  you  had  forgotten  his  ad- 
dress. He  is  absent  anyhow,  and  it  would 
not  have  served.  I  am  sure  I  do  not  know 

why  I  mounted  into  such  rage ."      It  had 

223 


April's  Sowing 

been  during  the  latter  phrases  as  if  a  thunder- 
cloud began  to  break  and  scatter  and  let  hints 
of  the  sun  drop  through.  "  No,  I  do  not 
know  what  made  me  lose  my  temper  so ;  I 
really  beg  your  pardon  for  it.  It  was  retro- 
spective indignation — retrospective  jealousy, 
perhaps ;  you  see  that  I  am  frank ;  but  I  am 
the  most  impassioned  of  friends  ! — or  per- 
haps the  thought  that  you  had  come  to  stir 
him  from  his  torpor  to  new  suffering.  You 
could  not  certainly  do  much,  but  something 
it  is  still  possible  you  might.  I  forgot  that 
you  are  leaving  Vienna  to-morrow.  I  think 
almost,  as  I  look  at  you,  that  I  may  have 
been  mistaken  in  the  circumstances  of  your 
acquaintance.  You  are  perfectly  indifferent, 
as  I  see.  But  why  did  you  feign  at  first  not 
to  know  him  in  his  portrait  ?  It  was  a  gratu- 
itous piece  of  hypocrisy.  Well,  well,  we 
sometimes  do  not  know  why  we  do  a  thing. 
I  am  sure,  for  example,  I  do  not  know  why 
I  have  made  you  a  scene. — So,  I  will  have 
the  three  carefully  packed  and  shipped  to 


April's  Sowing 

Cloverfield.  I  hope,  Miss  Brown,  you  will 
have  a  very  pleasant  journey."  The  clouds 
had  retired  below  the  horizon ;  the  sky  was 
smiling,  pure  cerulean. 

"  Thank  you  ! "  Nelly  turned  to  leave, 
walking  as  one  in  a  dream. 

Miss  Wildermuth  walked  beside  her.  At 
the  door,  she  put  out  her  hand  with  a  frank 
and  amiable  look.  Nelly  looked  directly  at 
it,  without  responsive  motion  of  her  own 
hand,  then  into  Juliane's  eyes,  with  eyes 
quite  grey. 

"  No,"  she  said,  "  I  won't ! — I  am  not 
going  to  constrain  myself.  With  you  it 
certainly  seems  unnecessary.  You  have 
been  frank  enough  yourself.  I  have  seen  the 
relief  it  is.  I  almost  feel  impelled  to  give  my- 
self the  luxury  of  being  frank,  too  ! — Though 
I  don't  really  know  why  I  should  bother  to 
say  anything  more.  It  would  be  so  simple 
to  let  you  believe  just  what  you  please  !  How 
does  it  affect  me  to  be  called  a  banal — what 
was  it  ?  Bird  !  Flirting-doll  !  Some  mon- 


April's  Sowing 

strosity  !  I  am  going  away  to-morrow.  But 
I  feel  surging  in  myself  a  crazy  desire  to  set 
your  mind  straight  on  some  points.  It  must 
be  imitative  insanity  !  I  am  certainly  go- 
ing away  to-morrow,  so  it  no  wise  involves 
me,  it  entails  nothing.  And  I  have  good 
reason  not  to  fear  its  going  any  further  than 
you.  Do  you  wish  to  hear  ?  Shall  I  tell 
you  ? — No,  thank  you,  I  won't  come  in 
and  sit  down  again.  I  sha'n't  be  long  and 
can  stand  where  I  am. — I  don't  know  how 
much  you  know  of  the  former  relations  be- 
tween John-Hector  Holmes  and  myself. 
You  made  a  good  guess,  anyhow,  when  you 
spoke  of  the  lady  throwing  her  glove  among 
the  lions.  It  wasn't  unlike  that,  but  it 
was  still  more  like  that  old  nursery-tale  in 
which  a  princess  sets  tasks  to  a  shepherd, 
by  which  if  he  is  successful  he  may  obtain 
her  hand.  On  the  face  of  it,  it  may  seem 
rather  hard  that  while  the  princess  sat  in  a 
cushioned  seat,  as  you  describe  her,  the 
shepherd  should  have  been  expected  to 
226 


April's  Sowing 

struggle,  suffer,  perhaps — But  then  some 
shepherds  would  have  endured  to  the  end. 
It  all  depends  on  the  kind  of  shepherd.  The 
princess  supposed  he  was  that  kind.  Well, 
he  is  not.  He  is  not  the  shepherd  any  more 
of  that  particular  story,  nor  is  she  the  prin- 
cess. They  have  nothing  more  to  do  with 
each  other,  and  it  all  ends.  But  I  want 
to  tell  Miss  Wildermuth  for  her  personal  edi- 
fication how  the  fairy-story  as  far  as  it  went 
varied  from  the  one  we  know. — No,  I  do 
not  wish  to  sit  down.  I  have  nearly  done. — 
That  benighted  girl  felt  so  strongly  for  her 
swain  in  his  hardships  that  she  set  herself  a 
task  quite  as  hard  as  his,  and  chose  to  be  poor 
and  hard-working  like  him,  just  as  long  as 
he  was.  Indeed,  I  have  not  had  a  good  time, 
in  the  ordinary  sense,  since  our  separation. 
What  an  idiot  I  was  !  I  came  away  from 
every  one  I  knew,  as  he  had  done;  I  had  to 
give  up  quite  a  lot  of  things.  I  made  my 
personal  income  as  trifling  as  I  knew  his  to 
be.  I  worked  as  hard  over  a  lot  of  stupid 
^^7 


April's  Sowing 

books  and  music  as  I  supposed  he  was  work- 
ing. I  would  not  let  him  do  more  than  I 
was  doing  !  My  dear  Miss  Wildermuth,  do 
you  seize  the  fine  shades  of  the  situation  ? 
While  you  were  so  successfully  consoling  and 
diverting  him,  as  you  explained  to  me,  I  was 
trying,  as  I  supposed,  to  make  myself  worthy 
of  him — worthy  of  so  much  love  as  he  was 
giving  me  proof  of !  And  what  did  I  think 
he  was  doing,  after  all  ?  Fitting  himself  to 
make  a  living,  as  every  man  has  got  to  do — 
at  least  in  America  it  is  so,  if  he  wants  people 
to  respect  him — doing  the  only  decent  thing 
the-re  was  for  him  to  do  !  Hereafter,  let  me 
tell  you,  I  shall  amuse  myself  indeed,  with  the 
serene  conviction  that,  such  as  I  am,  I  am 
quite  good  enough  for  any  man.  But  isn't  it 
an  amusing  thought?  While  you,  so  full  of 
heart,  were  teaching  him  to  forget  one  so  de- 
void of  it,  I — You  won't  suppose  it  in  the 
least  matters.  Nothing  on  earth  matters 
much,  we  both  know.  I  care  very  little, 
or  I  couldn't  tell  you  about  it  so  quietly, 


April's  Sowing 

could  I  ?  It  is  an  episode  !  A  thing  is,  then 
ceases  to  be.  I  shall  not  think  of  it  again  after 
to-day.  But  it  is  natural,  isn't  it,  that  I  should 
want  you  to  know  how  uncalled  for  you  have 
been  ?  I  am  going  away  to-morrow  on  a 
pleasure-trip  that  I  intend  shall  last  the  rest 
of  my  life.  I  shall  not  interfere  with  you.  You 
can  go  right  ahead  without  uneasiness  in  your 
process  of  consoling. — I  perceived  from  what 
you  said  that  our  methods  are  very  different. 
I  don't  mind  telling  you  that  I  shall  never 
think  of  adopting  yours.  But  they  do  interest 
me !  Fancy  coaxing  or  humoring  or  pamper- 
ing a  man!  How  frightfully  bad  for  them! 
They  are  so  conceited  as  it  is.  Pointer  for 
pointer:  I  would  trample  on  them,  if  I  were 
you.  I  am  sure  in  the  end  you  will  get  better 
results. — Good  morning.  I  had  just  as  soon 
shake  hands  with  you  now.  Let  us  do  so, 
Miss  Wildermuth,  and  make  a  pretence  that 
we  are  civilized  beings ! ' 

Juliane  took  the  hand  that  Nelly  held  out ; 
as  for  a  moment  she  neither  shook  nor  released 


April's  Sowing 

it,  Nelly  was  not  a  little  nervous  lest  she 
should  hold  on  to  her  by  it,  and  continue 
quarreling  on  some  other  line.  But  here  she 
was  struck  by  the  expression  in  Juliane's  face, 
quietly  aghast  and  wholly  absent.  She  tugged 
gently  at  her  hand.  Juliane  mechanically  re- 
tained it  by  a  pressure,  then,  with  that  char- 
acteristic gesture  of  her  shoulders,  dropped  it, 
opened  the  door  for  her  without  a  word,  and, 
Nelly  passing  out,  hurriedly  shut  it. 


230 


NELLY  had  been  sitting  several  minutes  in 
the  motionless  carriage,  when  the  coachman 
asked  her  if  she  wished  to  be  taken  back  to 
the  hotel.  She  stammered,  "  No — no  !  Take 
me  a  drive — out  of  town — yes,  anywhere  ! 
—Go  till  I  tell  you." 

She  had  been  driven  through  many  miles 
131 


April's  Sowing 

of  country,  before  she  thought  to  bid  the 
coachman  turn.  Her  mood,  by  that  time, 
had  softened.  A  wistful  sadness  had  fallen 
upon  her  face.  Happiness  she  would  do 
without ;  the  thought  of  happiness,  indeed, 
made  her  impatient ;  it  seemed  inseparable 
from  romance,  and  romance  affected  her  as 
the  tender  green  and  pink  of  pistachio  and 
strawberry  ice-cream  a  child  who  has  had  a 
surfeit  of  them.  The  contemplation  of  her 
life  as  she  now  pictured  it  brought  quiet : 
the  life  of  one  who  in  calm  and  dignity  pur- 
sues her  way,  without  demanding  or  expect- 
ing to  be  happy,  complaining  to  no  one,  re- 
proaching no  one,  desiring  with  any  activity 
only  the  approval  of  her  acts  by  her  higher 
intelligence. 

She  leaned  back  with  a  weary  little  noble 
air,  pale  with  unwitting  hunger,  for  it  was 
hard  upon  three,  and  she  had  not  lunched. 

So  she  was  passing  into  the  Hof  of  her 
hotel,  when  a  man  who  stood  near  the  outer 
entrance  looked  at  her.  She  did  not  know 
232 


April's  Sowing 

that  he  had  done  anything  to  attract  her 
attention ;  she  was  not  conscious  of  sign 
or  sound  on  his  part.  But  she  turned 
to  look  at  him,  in  mechanical  response. 
Was  it — no,  it  was  not — yes,  it  was,  John- 
Hector. 

She  had  been  carried  past.  Her  heart 
was  behaving  badly.  After  a  moment,  as  if 
nothing  had  occurred  to  weaken  her  knees, 
she  alighted  from  the  carriage.  She  made  an 
unnecessary  inquiry  of  the  gold-laced  blond 
who  came  to  assist  her,  and  went  to  her 
apartment. 

Murrie  returning  found  awaiting  her  an 
incomprehensible  Nelly.  Murrie  entertained 
her  with  the  detailed  narrative  of  their  jaunt, 
expecting  some  sort  of  account,  in  return,  of 
Nelly's  use  of  the  morning  ;  but  in  her  ex- 
pectation she  was  disappointed.  Nelly, 
though  looking  indefinably  unlike  herself,  did 
not  complain  of  her  health.  She  dined  with 
the  rest,  talked  little  less  than  usual,  and  left 
them  late  in  the  supposition  that  they  should 
233 


Aprir  s  Sowing 

all  be  starting  westward  together  early  on  the 
morrow. 

When  she  came  to  her  room,  and 
Murrie  addressed  herself  to  packing,  Nelly 
said,  after  watching  her  a  moment,  "  You 
needn't." 

"  Needn't  what  ?  " 

«  Pack." 

Murrie  took  a  seat,  and  gazed  at  Nelly. 
"  What  exactly  do  you  mean,  dear  ?  " 

"  I  am  not  going  to-morrow  with  the  rest. 
Don't  look  at  me  with  that  expression,  Mur- 
rie !  There's  nothing  more  to  it  than  that. 
I  don't  want  to  go  to-morrow,  and  I  don't 
want  to  go  with  the  rest." 

"  Very  well,"  said  Murrie,  with  deep  quiet. 
She  got  up  and  with  ostentatious  unostenta- 
tion  took  various  things  out  of  a  trunk  tray, 
stripped  them  of  tissue  paper,  and  re-ordered 
them  on  the  dressing-table.  Her  whole  per- 
son exhaled  an  atmosphere  of  hurt  feelings. 

Nelly's  eyes  followed  her  a  while  as  she 
moved  about,  doing  for  her  in  dead  silence 


April's  Sowing 

the  offices  of  a  maid.  Nelly  heaved  a  help- 
less inaudible  sigh,  and  began  undressing. 

She  had  got  into  bed  and  turned  toward 
the  wall,  when  Murrie  said  : 

"  I  suppose  I  had  better  go  and  tell  them." 

"  I  suppose  so." 

"What  shall  I  say?" 

"  Oh — anything  ! " 

"  Now,  Nelly,  you  know  it  won't  do  to 
say  merely  that  you  don't  want  their  com- 
pany. You  know  that,  unprincipled  as  it 
may  be,  out  of  decency  we  shall  have  to  in- 
vent a  story  of  some  sort." 

"  Very  well,  invent  one." 

"  I  suppose  I  could  say,  with  some  show 
of  reason,  my  dear  child,  that  you  have  gone 
completely  mad  ! " 

Nelly  turned  quickly  in  the  bed,  bending 
upon  Murrie  her  blackest  scowl.  "  Murrie, 
if  you  don't  stand  by  me  now,  you  will  undo 
all  you  have  ever  done  to  make  me  like 
you ! " 

Murrie  instantly   rushed    forward,  caught 


April's  Sowing 

Nelly,  and  while  Nelly  with  all  her  strength 
was  pushing  to  free  herself,  kissed  her  in  the 
neck.  "  My  darling  precious,  I  will  tell 
bouncers  for  you  till  I  drop,  and  you  know  I 
will !  All  I  ask  is  a  little  assistance  from 
your  younger  and  fresher  imagination  !  " 

"  No  !  You  must  do  it  all.  It's  only  re- 
spectable to  lie  for  some  one  else,"  and  Nelly 
turned  again  to  the  wall. 

Murrie  muttered  playfully,  "  It  would  do 
Pa  and  Ma  Brown  good  to  hear  you  !  "  put 
out  the  light,  and  left  her. 

In  the  morning  Mrs.  Potter  and  Florence 
came  stepping  softly  into  the  darkened  bed- 
room, and  bade  Nelly  good-bye  without  one 
question.  Their  kisses  had  an  effect  of  for- 
bearing sympathy.  They  expressed  their 
trust  that  she  would  soon  join  them  in  Lon- 
don, and  were  quickly  gone. 

As  Nelly  lay  wondering  what  was  the 
masterly  thing  Murrie  had  told  them,  Murrie 
herself  came  in  with  a  soft  chuckle.  Know- 
ing that  Nelly  was  awake,  she  opened  the  shut- 
236 


April's  Sowing 

ters,  and  came  to  sit  as  usual  upon  the  bed's 
edge,  and  "  tell  her  all  about  it." 

She  had  not  proceeded  far  in  telling,  when 
her  attention  abruptly  fell  from  the  subject. 

"  Why,  Nelly !  "  she  exclaimed,  bending 
forward  and  looking  curiously  into  the  girl's 
face,  her  forehead  contracted  into  lines  of 
dismay. 

«  What  is  it  ? "  said  Nelly  huskily. 

"  Why,  my  darling,  you  look  as  if — why, 
my  own  precious  baby," — her  voice  dropped 
to  a  tone  of  awe — "  have  you  been  crying?  " 

"No  !  "  said  Nelly  crossly,  "  I  have  a  cold 
in  my  head  !  " 

Murrie  did  not  dispute  the  assertion ;  she 
considered  her  charge  with  an  effect  of  being 
frightened  at  what  she  saw.  Nelly,  with  a 
suggestion  in  her  movement  of  squirming, 
turned  her  disfigured  countenance  away  from 
her  friend's  anxious  scrutiny ;  as  she  did  so, 
tears  came  crowding  into  her  weakened  eyes. 
She  lay  unnaturally  quiet,  and  so  sat  Murrie. 

After  a  long  sympathetic  silence,  "  Nelly, 
>37 


April's  Sowing 

listen,  dear,"  said  Murrie.  "  Why  don't  we 
just  pack  up  and  go  home  to  Cloverfield?  " 

"  You  think  it  would  cure  my  cold  !  "  said 
Nelly,  witheringly. 

"  Hush,  dear,  hush ! — Oh,  childie,  darling," 
— Murrie  dropped  on  her  knees  beside  the  bed, 
and  tried  to  take  Nelly,  who  resisted,  in  her 
arms — "why  don't  you  make  a  friend  of  me? 
Why  do  you  treat  me  like  the  commonest 
stranger  ?  You  know  there's  nothing  upon 
God's  earth  I  wouldn't  do  for  you. — Here  I 
have  been  with  you  every  minute  for  months 
and  months,  trying  faithfully  to  be  hands  and 
feet  to  you,  and  you  have  something  on  your 
heart  that  has  made  you  cry  till  your  face  is 
fairly  blistered,  and  you  tell  me  it  is  a  cold  in 
your  head,  and  with  that  I  am  to  be  satisfied. 
Upon  my  soul,  Nelly,  I  don't  think  I  am 
being  fairly  treated  !  " 

Nelly  by  this  time  was  crying  immode- 
rately, and  Murrie  stopped  speaking  to  dis- 
solve in  tears.  They  fell  to  hugging  each 
other,  and  Nellie  stroking  the  hair  off  Murrie's 


April's  Sowing 

face  seemed  to  be  turning  its  color :  it  was 
silver  where  it  usually  showed  black;  the 
fading  face  so  framed  looked  softer,  more 
benignant. 

"  Oh,  Murrie,  Murrie,"  Nelly  gasped,  "  I 
am  cold-hearted  as  a  stone !  It  is  just  like 
me,  just  like  me,  to  go  on  and  on  taking  all 
you  do  for  me,  and  all  your  affection,  never 
thinking  much  about  it  !  And  it's  just  the  way 
things  go  in  this  life  that  then  something 
should  happen  to  take  you  away  from  me, 
and  that  then  I  should  know  how  much  I 
cared,  and  break  my  heart  over  it !  " 

She  was  crying  so  violently,  this  Nellie 
little  given  to  tears,  the  things  she  said  seemed 
so  unhinged,  that  Murrie,  after  long  trying  to 
quiet  her,  became  seriously  alarmed,  and  drew 
off  to  contemplate  her,  no  longer  doubting 
that  she  looked  upon  some  critical  form  of 
nervous  collapse. 

With  the  sense  that  here  was  a  situation 
that  called  for  action,  Murrie  rapidly  com- 
posed herself.  Nervous  collapse  to  her  ex- 
Z39 


April's  Sowing 

plained  everything.  No  further  reason  need 
be  given  for  Nelly's  late  incomprehensibleness 
and  present  tears.  She  took  at  once  with  her 
the  gentle  and  tender  manner  she  would  have 
used  toward  a  sick  child. 

When,  in  spite  of  remonstrance,  Nelly 
would  get  up,  she  helped  her  to  dress ;  from 
the  depths  of  the  trunk  she  fetched  a  tea 
gown  for  her.  With  fondling  words,  she 
arranged  an  armchair  and  little  table  with 
books  and  bromide  in  a  window  overlooking 
the  Hof,  and  made  Nelly,  who  meekly  lent 
herself  to  this  fuss,  comfortable  in  it  with 
cushions.  When  she  could  find  nothing 
more  to  do  for  her,  she  kissed  her. 

"Where  are  you  going?"  asked  Nelly, 
sure  of  a  farewell  element  in  this  embrace. 

"  Well,  since  we  are  not  leaving  to-day,  I 
thought  I  would  go  out  and  do  several 
things." 

Nelly  seized  the  evasiveness  in  this ;  she 
knew  what  Murrie  meant  to  do.  She  thought 
a  moment,  then  said,  "  Could  you,  dear,  just 


April's  Sowing 

as  well  as  not,  while  you  are  out "  etc., 

etc.  She  had  set  her  a  lengthy  errand.  It 
seemed  to  the  poor  child  that  she  should 
smother  if  she  were  not  let  alone. 

As  Murrie  was  leaving,  Nellie  called  after 
her,  "Murrie,  mind  you  don't  bring  a  doctor. 
I  won't  see  him,  if  you  do.  There's  not  a 
thing  the  matter  with  me  !  " 

Murrie  stood  in  the  doorway  a  moment, 
without  turning ;  then,  without  argument,  left. 
On  her  way  down,  she  reflected  that  if  there 
had  been  anything  to  find  out,  she  had  not 
found  it. 

As  soon  as  Murrie  had  gone,  Nellie  pushed 
away  the  little  table,  and  jumped  up.  Any- 
thing was  easier  than  sitting  still.  The 
necessity  to  keep  still  before  Murrie  had  been 
trying  her  to  the  limit  of  her  new  penitent 
patience. 

Never  could  she  have  imagined  the  condi- 
tion she  was  in ;  she  could  only  think,  by 
way  of  object  to  compare  with  herself,  of  a 
hare  caught  in  a  hunter's  trap.  She  seemed 
241 


April's  Sowing 

to  have  been  caught  in  a  horrible  unsuspected 
trap  of  her  own  feelings.  She  could  as  little 
endure  what  she  felt,  in  quiet,  as  could  the 
hare. 

"  When  did  everything  change  ?  How  ? 
Where  was  my  mistake  ?  "  she  asked  con- 
fusedly, looking  over  the  past.  She  had  been 
going,  open-eyed,  on  a  road  chosen  for  its 
safety,  taking  one  discreet  step  after  another 
— to  end  in  this  morass,  masked  from  her  all 
along  with  deceitful  flowers.  When  she  had 
last  seen  John-Hector,  had  there  been  any- 
thing in  their  interview  foreshadowing  this? 
She  laughed  aloud  to  remember  the  John- 
Hector  of  that  last  night.  And  she  had  not 
seen  him  since,  had  had  nothing  to  do  with 
him.  How  had  this  difference  come  about  ?  " 

Was  love,  then,  of  the  nature  of  a  seed, 
dropped  in  your  heart  in  perhaps  your  single 
soft  and  unsuspicious  moment,  suffered  by 
you  a  while  because  it  seemed  so  innocently 
eradicable ;  then,  when  you  decided  most 
becoming  in  your  case  to  uproot  it,  found  to 


April's  Sowing 

have  so  grown  that  you  must  tear  out  it  and 
your  heart  together,  for  they  can  no  longer 
be  told  apart  ? 

She  was  outraged  at  what  seemed  to  her  a 
betrayal  of  nature's ;  outraged  at  this  liberty 
taken  with  man,  to  make  him  love  against 
his  will.  She  could  not  conceive  of  her  life 
to  come;  it  was  a  contradiction  in  terms  : 
Nelly  Brown,  and  disappointed,  incurably 
sad.  Une  vie  manquee — hers,  Nelly's !  For 
she  should  never  get  over  this,  she  was  sure ; 
the  poignancy  would  never  pass  out  of  her 
woe  at  the  contemplation  of  happiness 
missed.  The  enormity  of  her  misfortune 
had  struck  her  still :  she  had  remained  in 
Vienna,  not  because  she  wished  to — wished 
or  hoped  anything,  or  saw  light  on  any  side 
— but  because  she  could  not  go,  any  more  than 
if  her  knees  had  been  broken.  She  did  not 
attempt  to  explain  it. 

At  the  crossing  of  her  glance  with  John- 
Hector's,  she  had  known,  for  the  first  time, 
what  it  had  all  meant  which  had  taken  place 
243 


April's  Sowing 

between  them,  and  all  that  had  been  quietly 
at  work  in  her  breast  since  then.  She  had 
felt  that  of  the  innumerable  souls  created, 
there  was  but  one  belonging  with  hers,  and 
that  one  this  John-Hector's,  who  had  not 
lifted  his  hat  to  her.  For  he  had  not  lifted 
his  hat  to  her.  The  moment  before  seeing 
him  again,  she  had  been  dispassionately  ar- 
ranging with  herself  to  do  without  him  ;  yes- 
terday morning  she  had  supposed  six  months 
the  longest  it  might  take  to  put  him  out  of 
her  mind ;  and  not  very  long  before  that,  she 
shuddered  to  remember,  she  had  considered 
marrying  some  one  else,  off-hand,  to  prove  she 
did  not  care  a  pin.  Zest  had  been  missing 
from  life,  certainly;  but  she  had  said  that 
this  was  temporary,  and  taken  patience. 
Then,  when  their  eyes  had  met,  the  thought 
had  leaped  up  full-grown,  "  It  doesn't  matter 
to  me  what  he  has  done,  if  he  will  only  come 
back !  " 

Nelly  in  walking  up  and  down  wrung  her 
little  hands  no  otherwise  than  an  actress  on 
244 


April's  Sowing 

the  tragic  stage.  This  experience,  with  a 
dark  touch,  seemed  to  have  opened  a  door  on 
to  the  night  of  a  mysterious  world,  where 
awful  eternal  powers  dwelt,  against  whom 
mortal  might  as  well  not  fight.  What  was 
the  infliction  they  stopped  at  ?  She  was  suf- 
fering so  much  beyond  any  former  fancy,  that 
the  question  had  a  cowering  interest.  An 
element  of  especial  anguish  in  her  anguish 
was  that  with  this  discovery  of  an  incalcula- 
ble capacity  in  herself  to  be  hurt  had  come 
the  recognition  of  a  capacity  too — would 
Heaven  but  return  to  smile  upon  her  as  it 
used ! — to  be  happy  in  a  degree  she  had  not 
dreamed.  She  half  discerned,  and  was  tor- 
mented by,  a  glitter,  a  glow,  a  mother-o'- 
pearly  wash,  of  lights  within  lights,  wells 
within  wells,  in  an  ironical  region  never  now 
to  be  attained. 

Tears  she  could  not  repress  started  from 
her  eyes.  She  exclaimed  with  her  whole 
heart,  "  God,  help  me — help  me,  do  !  " 

She  was  in  the  habit  of  addressing  a  nightly 

145 


April's  Sowing 

prayer  to  the  venerable  God  of  her  father  and 
mother,  and,  to  please  her  mother,  she  read  a 
portion  of  His  word  before  breakfast ;  but  it 
seemed  some  one  different,  less  forbiddingly 
majestic,  to  whom  she  sent  up  her  appeal, 
"  Oh,  God,  make  everything  different — make 
everything  all  right !  " 

Hardly  had  her  prayer  left  her,  burning 
and  throbbing,  than  she  answered  herself 
aloud  in  a  contemptuous  voice,  "  Oh,  He 
won't!  He'll  do  just  as  He  pleases  !  " 

Now,  in  her  aimless,  animal-like  pacing 
about,  she  came  to  the  window;  she  looked 
up  at  the  sky,  without  the  object  of  seeing  it, 
and  in  the  same  way  down  into  the  court — 
and  there  she  saw  John  Hector,  where  he  had 
been  standing  yesterday. 

She  drew  quickly  out  of  sight,  and,  felled 
to  earth  by  her  emotion,  dropped  on  her 
knees  below  the  window.  "Oh,  God  !  "  she 
murmured,  with  a  rush  of  all  her  blood  to 
her  heart ;  "  oh,  God  !  find  a  way." 

It  seemed  to  her  that  if  it  just  might  be 
246 


April's  Sowing 

that  John-Hector  and  she  should  be  again  as 
they  were  in  the  old  days  at  Cloverfield,  she 
would  never  ask  God  for  other  grace.  It 
seemed  to  her  that  just  to  belong  with  that 
common  enough  boy  down  there,  idle  as  he 
might  be,  weak  of  character,  wrong-headed, 
unfaithful  to  his  promises,  would  be  happiness 
so  intense  that  never  anything  need  be  added 
to  it.  "  To  have  him  back,  oh,  God,  oh, 
God  ! "  she  prayed,  "  and  let  everything  else 
be  as  it  will  !  "  There  drifted  across  her  re- 
membrance what  he  had  once  said,  "  If  we 
were  only  savages  on  a  South  Sea  island,  or 
even  poor  people  working  in  the  same 
factory  !  " 

She  rose  a  little,  and  looked  down  at  him, 
trembling  and  holding  her  breath.  Could 
anything  so  good  be  true,  as  that  he  was 
coming  up  ? 

No;  he  stood  there  just  as  before,  looking 
vaguely  at  the   long  rows  of  windows.     He 
was  not  alone  in  the  court ;  people  were  con- 
stantly coming  and  going,  some  lingering  as 
247 


April's  Sowing 

he  was  doing.  There  was  nothing  remarkable 
in  his  presence  there.  A  reflection  of  the 
sky,  gray  that  day,  was  on  his  face.  He 
looked  self-contained  as  ever,  but  a  concen- 
trated sadness  spoke  in  the  fold  between  his 
eyebrows,  a  heavy  dejection  in  his  shoulders. 
There  was  that  about  him  altogether,  in  his 
youth  and  gloom,  which  might  have  made 
any  one  sorry  for  whatever  it  was  that  had 
gone  so  unutterably  wrong  with  him,  yet 
respectful  for  the  size  of  the  discontent  his 
whole  being  expressed. 

Nelly,  after  a  night  spent  in  tears,  could 
not  easily  control  their  passage  now.  She  felt 
them  blind  her  as  she  watched  him,  "  Oh, 
I  know  how  it  will  be  !  Nothing  will  happen, 
nothing  to  mend  it !  "  she  said  ;  "  he  will 
stand  there,  and  I  here,  and  he  won't  come 
in,  and  I  sha'n't  go  out.  And  I  shall  leave, 
and  he  remain  behind.  He  will  go  from 
bad  to  worse,  and  in  my  way  so  shall  I.  He 
will  never  make  anything  of  himself.  All 
sorts  of  women  will  make  all  sorts  of  a  fool 


April's  Sowing 

of  him,  and  I  shall  hear  of  it.  Not  one  will 
love  him  as  I,  and  be  patient  with  everything, 
and  have  pride  for  him,  and  stick  to  him  till 
the  end.  He  will  go  down,  down,  down. 
He  will  lose  his  hold  on  himself,  he  will  be- 
come reckless,  he  will  be  ill  by  and  by,  and 
shabby  and  neglected,  and  I  shall  hear  of  it ; 
they  will  tell  me,  not  knowing  that  I  care, 
and  it  will  kill  me  as  surely  as  a  cancer  that 
takes  years  to  do  it !  " 

She  tried  to  put  herself  in  his  place,  to 
account  for  this  and  that,  to  see  what  it  could 
mean  that  he  should  not  come  up  and  see 
her.  All  she  knew  was  what  Percy  had  told 
Murrie,  and  what  Juliane  had  told  herself. 
All  she  had  heard  admitted  of  an  explanation 
that  should  exonerate  John-Hector.  Why 
did  he  not  come  and  explain?  She  was  ready 
to  believe  anything  he  chose  to  tell  her. 
There  was  the  possibility,  of  course,  of  all 
being  much  worse  than  she  had  heard,  which 
would  justify  his  not  venturing  to  approach 
her.  His  not  coming  must  mean  that.  But 


April's  Sowing 

he  loved  her ;  he  was  not  there  by  chance ; 
she  knew  by  intuition,  by  former  divination 
of  the  manner  of  heart  he  had,  that  he  was 
there  because  he  had  not  been  able  to  stay 
away,  weak  as  she  knew  him  of  old,  moth  to 
his  last  breath.  But  he  was  incapable 
of  telling  lies,  so  he  remained  outside. 
"  Oh,  why  doesn't  he  come  ? "  she  said, 
u  and,  whatever  has  happened,  understand 
that  Nelly  will  forgive  him  all !  "  She  lost 
sight  of  the  Nelly  he  had  been  brought  up  to 
believe  in. 

"  Why  does  he  stand  there  like  a  pole  !  " 
she  raved.  "  He  can't  go  on  standing  there 
all  day,  in  that  ridiculous  fashion  !  But  oh, 
he  mustn't  go  ! — God  knows  he  mustn't  go !  " 
and  she  stamped  her  little  feet. 

She  could  not  doubt  at  last  that  he  was 
arousing  comment  among  the  hotel  officials, 
conspicuous  as  he  was.  She  was  suddenly 
sure  of  it.  She  saw  a  man,  of  whom  she  had 
taken  no  account  till  then,  speak  to  another, 
and  point  at  the  lounger.  The  other  man 
250 


April's  Sowing 

looked,  said  something,  and  both  stood  look- 
ing. 

Heat  of  very  terror  burned  Nelly.  How 
could  she  have  forgotten  ?  John-Hector  was 
in  danger  of  arrest.  He  should  have  been  in 
hiding.  And  there  he  stood,  openly  braving 
justice.  Where  had  her  senses  been  ?  He 
might  be  taken  under  her  eyes. — Oh,  what  to 
do  ! — Clearly  she  ought  to  warn  him.  Those 
men  might  be  nothing  but  the  most  harmless 
private  persons,  but  on  the  other  hand — 

She  rang  the  bell,  ran  to  the  writing-table, 
and  scribbled  on  a  card.  When  the  servant 
came  she  gave  it  to  him  with  hurried  direc- 
tions. Then  she  posted  herself  at  the  window 
and  watched.  It  seemed  impossible  but  that 
her  aid  should  come  too  late,  but  that  the  de- 
tectives who  were  watching  John-Hector 
should  interfere. 

She  saw  the  servant  approach  him,  hand 
him  the  card;  she  saw  John-Hector,  after 
reading  it,  follow  the  servant.  No  one 
stirred  to  stop  him. 

251 


April's  Sowing 

"  God  be  thanked  !  "  broke  forth  from 
Nelly  as  he  passed  out  of  vision,  and  an  ex- 
cess of  feeling  for  a  moment  made  it  impos- 
sible for  her  to  move. 

From  a  tremendous  height  of  consciousness, 
she  dropped  to  earth,  and  dashing  into  her 
bedroom,  held  cold  water  to  her  eyes,  and 
disguised  her  sorrily  stained  cheeks  under  a 
shower  of  violet  powder ;  with  a  turn  and  a 
few  pats  adjusted  her  head,  which  she  had 
been  seizing  between  her  hands  in  such  de- 
spair a  moment  before,  to  a  seeming  of  merely 
artistic  disorder. 

Steps  dawned  in  the  hallway.  She  returned 
to  the  sitting-room. 

A  pause  in  the  steps,  a  knock,  a  little  cough 
from  herself,  and  the  door  opened. 


JOHN-HECTOR  stood  in  the  doorway.  He 
was  noticeably  pale,  a  brownish  drab  rather 
than  white.  His  features,  under  better  con- 
trol than  his  color,  expressed  little ;  his  man- 
ner was  the  stolid  manner  she  had  sometime 
known. 

A  wave  of  exultation  had  swept  over  Nelly 


April's  Sowing 

at  the  sound  of  him  nearing  the  door ;  her 
hands  had  shut  with  a  sense  of  tremendous 
power,  of  being  herself  once  more  mistress  of 
the  fates  of  every  one  concerned.  Whatever 
was  about  to  happen,  when  John-Hector  re- 
crossed  the  threshold  it  would  be  as  her 
slave. 

At  his  entrance,  it  was  as  if  a  leaf  turned 
over  in  life :  from  a  page  where  the  text  had 
strained  fluttering  at  a  confused  vertiginous 
height,  to  one  of  simple  and  common  reading. 
She  was  another  Nelly  at  once ;  she  was  the 
Nelly  of  his  former  acquaintance. 

With  her  prettiest  society  manner,  she  held 
out  a  little  frozen  hand,  and  began  without 
loss  of  a  second,  in  a  superficial  society 
voice,  "  Well,  this  is  a  pleasant  surprise  !  " 

John-Hector  took  the  hand,  with  the 
slightest  possible  effect  of  being  staggered. 

After  the  conventional  half-second  of  hold- 
ing it  in  a  common  grasp,  as  if  coming  to 
himself,  he  gave  it  a  convulsive  pressure,  and 
did  almost  as  if  to  draw  her  nearer  by  it;  but 
2S4 


April's  Sowing 

as  suddenly  relinquished  the  idea  and  her 
hand. 

She  had  apparently  noticed  nothing.  She 
smiled  very  sweetly,  and  pointed  to  one  end 
of  the  sofa,  on  the  other  end  of  which  she 
took  a  seat. 

"Well,  well,  well!"  she  said,  as  people 
will  when  they  chance  upon  one  another  un- 
expectedly in  foreign  places.  It  might  have 
seemed  that  she  had  never  been  more  than  a 
slight  acquaintance;  or  that  she  had  com- 
pletely forgotten  their  affectionate  parting,  not 
thinking  passages  of  the  sort  of  sufficient  im- 
portance to  remember. 

"Well,  well,  well!  Now  sit  down  there, 
and  tell  me  all  about  yourself.  It  is  a  long 
time  since  we  last  saw  each  other !  " 

John  Hector  was  not  prompt  with  a  reply. 

Nelly  did  not  wait  for  one.  "Weren't 
you  surprised  to  see  me  ? "  she  asked,  with 
the  well-known  sunniness  ;  "  for  it  was  you, 
wasn't  it,  I  passed  yesterday  as  I  was  driving 
in?  I  felt  almost  sure  it  was,  though  I 


r  s  Sowing 

haven't  seen  you  for  so  long,  and  you  have 
changed  somewhat ;  only,  I  wasn't  quite  sure 
because  you  didn't  lift  your  hat.  You  didn't 
know  I  was  here,  did  you  ?  " 

"  That  you  were  on  the  Continent,  yes, 
but  not  that  you  were  here — till  yesterday." 

"  Of  course,  it  would  have  been  polite  in 
me  to  drop  you  a  line  when  I  arrived.  I 
surely  ought  to  have  !  But  I  heard  of  some 
funny  trouble  you  were  in — h'm  !  it  seems 
scarcely  delicate  to  mention  it ! — with  the 
police !  and  I  didn't  suppose  there  would  be 
much  use  in  trying  to  find  you  in  your  usual 
haunts.  Besides,  I  wasn't  really  sure  what 
your  address  was  ;  you  might  have  changed  a 
dozen  times.  But,  now  I  think  of  it,  my 
dear  friend,  how  is  it  you  dare  walk  out  in 
broad  daylight,  with  a  price,  so  to  speak,  on 
your  head  ?  Or  was  it  a  mean  fabrication, 
all  that  about  a  duel  and  a  threatened  arrest  ? 
Come,  tell  me  the  whole  story  !  Am  I  not 
one  of  your  oldest  friends  ?  Not  a  breath  shall 
reach  home  through  me  !  It  sounded  inter- 
z56 


April's  Sowing 

esting :  a  beautiful  red-haired  notoriety,  a 
flattering  portrait,  an  infuriated  rival,  an 
armed  meeting — nothing  was  wanting!  You 
have  been  living  the  sensational  novels  we 
only  read,  pauvres  nous  autres  !  This  is  a 
great  place,  isn't  it !  How  tame  it  makes 
America  !  How  stupid  Cloverfield  days!  " 

"  Don't,  dear !  "  he  murmured.  He  sat 
rather  helplessly,  looking  straight  before  him, 
at  nothing,  as  if  he  had  resigned  his  body  to 
tortures. 

"  What  do  you  hear  from  Ethel  ? "  she 
went  off  at  a  conversational  tangent;  and 
without  waiting  for  an  answer :  "  And  how 
are  you  really  getting  on  with  your  medical 
studies  ?  Give  it  me  straight,  John-Hector ! 
They  think  you  are  doing  wonders,  I  know ; 
that  you  are  a  sort  of  reformed  pirate.  Of 
course  you  would  entertain  that  notion  in 
them.  As  for  me,  I  always  had  my  little 
doubts,  you  know.  I  think  I  must  have  men- 
tioned them  before  you  left.  I  turn  out  to 
have  been  a  great  reader  of  character,  don't  I  ?" 
157 


April's  Sowing 

"  Don't,  Nelly  !  "  said  John-Hector,  again, 
patiently. 

And  here,  as  she  was  about  to  go  lightly 
on  increasing  in  her  cruelties,  without  warn- 
ing, an  incomprehensible  rush  of  tears  was  to 
Nelly's  head.  She  felt  her  face  flush  and 
tremble,  her  eyes  and  throat  fill.  Nature  for 
the  moment  was  stronger  than  she ;  nature, 
on  whom  she  had  heaped  contumely,  was 
going  to  be  revenged ;  she  refused  to  be  dis- 
torted and  crushed. 

Nelly  sat  straighter,  in  stark  horror.  She 
knew  then  her  fatal  mistake,  to  let  herself 
cry  as  she  had  done.  Alone,  in  the  uncour- 
ageous  dark,  in  the  posture  of  defeat,  she  had 
thought  that  alleviation  might  be  found  in 
releasing  those  long-gathering  tears.  And 
one  does  not  indulge  them  with  impunity,  it 
appears ;  the  gates  that  give  them  way  are 
weakened  by  such  concession.  Or  else  she 
should  have  wept  to  the  exhaustion  of  all  the 
tears  in  her  body ;  but  she  had  been  afraid 
to,  because  of  the  traces  of  such  a  debauch, 
258 


April's  Sowing 

with  Murrie  to  consider.  Unspeakable  trifler! 
She  had  cried  too  much  and  not  enough  ! 
and  now,  how  should  ever  this  degradation 
be  wiped  out  ? 

She  was  uncertain  whether  to  rise  and  go 
to  the  window.  She  feared  he  would  look 
after  her  in  wonder  why  she  did  it,  and  dis- 
cover. She  turned  a  little  to  one  side,  and 
made  her  face  rigid,  and  let  her  staring  eyes 
drink  back  their  tears.  But  there  was  a 
stupid,  unexplainable  silence  while  she  was 
so  employed,  a  disgrace  forever.  If  he 
should  look  at  her  this  moment,  it  seemed 
he  could  not  but  divine.  He  was  looking  at 
her,  fixedly,  now  that  she  looked  away  from 
him ;  but  yet  she  could  not  be  sure  that 
what  was  happening  was  apparent  to  him. 

Until  he  said,  "  Don't,  dear  !  "  so  softly 
and  sorrowfully,  and  put  out  an  instinctive 
hand  toward  her  cheek,  as  he  might  have  done 
to  a  weeping  child. 

She  started  away  from  him  with  blazing 
eyes,  and  would  have  said  something  indig- 
259 


April's  Sowing 

nant,  but  that  she  felt  it  inevitable  her  voice 
should  be  shattered  on  the  first  syllable. 
With  an  intensity  that  made  her  tremble,  she 
hated  this  force  that  compelled  her  to  cry 
when  she  had  refused  to ;  she  loathed  being  a 
woman  with  a  body  weaker  than  her  mind. 
She  sat  silent,  tear-choked  and  raging. 

"  Why,"  said  John-Hector,  who  withdrew 
his  eyes  delicately,  and  let  his  forehead  fall  in 
his  hands,  and  his  elbows  on  his  knees, 
"  why  didn't  you  write  to  me  !  " 

"  Now,  that,"  cried  Nelly,  in  a  burst  of 
natural-sounding,  if  rather  hard,  laughter,  "  is 
funny  \  The  least  said  about  that,  I  should 
think,  the  better  !  Doesn't  it  seem  to  you, 
all  taken  into  account,  that  it  was  a  sign 
of  superior  intelligence  in  me  that  I  did 
not?" 

"  No,  dear,"  said  John  simply.  "  I  wish 
—oh,  how  I  wish  you  had  !  " 

"  Well,  I — I  must  say — am  glad  I  didn't ! " 

Then  she  remembered  something  that 
seemed  to  save  the  situation,  and  wondered 


April's  Sowing 

furiously  how  she  could  have  forgotten  to 
speak  of  it  the  moment  he  entered. 

"  By  the  way,"  she  said,  "  do  you  know 

what  made  me  send  for  you?  It  was  not 

oh,  no !  I  confess,  it  was  not  the  simple  de- 
sire to  see  you,  touching  as  a  meeting  is 
between  two  old  friends.  I  saw  a  man  out 
there  watching  you  so  closely  I  felt  sure  he 
had  some  relation  with  the  justice  of  this 
land.  I  thought  it  would  be  exciting  to  assist 
you  in  escaping — help  on  the  yellow-covered 
novel.  You  can  leave  the  hotel  by  the  back 
way,  or  the  fire-escape,  if  there  is  one. — You 
can  change  clothes  with  one — with  one  of 
the  porters — or  of  the " 

"  Stop !  "  cried  John-Hector  impetuously, 
"You  sha'n't  go  on  like  this!  I  won't  stand 
it !  You  think  you  have  a  right  to  say  any- 
thing to  me  !  You  have  not,  then ! — Oh, 
Nelly,"  he  concluded  lamely,  as  if  he  got  off 
a  tall  horse  to  burrow  his  forehead  in  the 
dust,  "  don't  you  understand  anything  ?  One 
could  suppose  you  had  no  eyes,  no  heart  at 
261 


April* s  Sowing 

all "  and  added,  like  an  injured  child, 

"don't  treat  me  like  this  !  " 

Yes,  yes,  the  old  John-Hector,  the  old 
way.  That  unfair,  that  contemptible  gentle- 
ness that  incomprehensibly  forced  her  to  cry. 
She  stared  him  down  through  her  unmanage- 
able returning  tears,  with  a  look  that  said,  "  I 
cry,  I  cry,  it  cannot  be  denied.  What  of 
it  ?  Let  me  tell  you  it  bodes  no  good  to 
you  ! ' 

But  he  took  account,  at  the  same  time  as 
of  the  forbidding  expression,  of  the  deeply 
stained  lids,  the  dabbled  lashes,  the  galled 
white  and  blue,  drowning  while  it  defied.  He 
turned  away  in  pain,  and  put  out  his  hand 
uncertainly  where  hers  lay  clenched  on  her 
little  pocket-handkerchief,  and  covered  her 
hand  with  his. 

There  was  a  moment  such  as  follows  the 
stretching  of  a  string  to  its  highest  point  of 
tension  (tension  enough  was  in  the  sinews  of 
Nelly's  resisting  hand  !) ;  that  pause  during 
which  one  questions  will  the  string  stand  or 
262 


April's  Sowing 

will  it  snap. — Then  the  unforeseeable  hap- 
pened, as  if  the  string  should  neither  stand 
nor  yet  snap,  but  force  the  constraining  peg 
to  let  it  down. 

This  meeting,  which  still  ahead  had 
seemed  the  cramped,  flint-strewn,  bespiked 
passage  back  to  Eden,  was  on  proof  showing 
to  be  nothing  of  the  sort,  but  a  means  rather 
of  driving  them  further  apart.  Nelly  had 
been  with  every  moment  becoming  stiffer, 
worse-tempered,  less  approachable ;  it  was 
clearly  impossible  to  explain  things  to  her, 
useless  to  try  to  appease  her ;  a  bristling  cit- 
adel with  a  tongue  she  was,  such  as  the  bold- 
est man  would  hesitate  to  attempt  taking,  by 
storm  or  strategy.  John-Hector  did  not, 
verily,  look  the  man  to  do  it.  He  had  been 
sitting  with  an  effect  of  apathy  that  did 
patently  not  come  from  insensibility — a 
writhing  scowl  betrayed  him — but  was  rather 
the  attitude  of  one,  without  defence,  who 
is  being  hurt  so  much  that  it  hardly  seems 
to  matter  how  much  more.  Nelly  herself 
263 


April's  Sowing 

saw,  with  a  sort  of  despair,  that  all  was  going 
to  end  as  she  had  not  intended,  through 
her  fault,  certainly,  but  in  consequence  of 
laws  of  temperament  she  could  not  bend,  and 
in  spite  of  her  honest  wish  in  the  matter. 
The  shining  garden  was  growing  blurred  and 
problematic  ;  hell-smoke  obscured  the  golden- 
appled  trees,  the  wells  brimming  with  hya- 
cinth light.  It  was  becoming  plain  that  the 
pride  which  she  had  kept  in  conceit  from  her 
cradle  with  multifarious  offerings,  was  to  be 
glutted  now  with  a  double  human  sacrifice. 
"So  be  it!"  said  with  sanguinary  rashness 
one  Nelly  of  the  several  that  dwelt  in  the 
same  pleasing  body.  But  another,  who  re- 
cognized in  one  of  the  victims  herself,  feel- 
ing upon  her  hand,  tender,  apologetic,  im- 
ploring, the  hand  of  her  doomed  companion, 
fellow-sufferer  in  a  crudest  land,  rose  up  in  a 
passion  of  pity  and  self-pity,  to  object,  to  re- 
sist, to  lament 

Nelly  gave  an  irrepressible,  miserable,  pa- 
thetic sough,  and  with  a  wild  little  gesture 
264 


April's  Sowing 

lifted  the  only  arm  she  could  get  the  use  of 
across  her  face.  John-Hector  with  a  horri- 
fied, choking  appeal  to  her  not  to,  not  to, 
darling,  released  the  struggling  hand  with  the 
pocket  handkerchief  to  gather  all  of  her  in 
his  arms. 

And  presently,  by  grace  of  the  Indulgence 
that  does  not  ask  too  much  of  miserable  lov- 
ers, without  having,  either  of  them,  done  the 
least  to  deserve  or  bring  it  about — served 
best  indeed  by  tears  she  would  have  short- 
ened life  to  suppress — they  found  themselves 
at  the  other  side  of  the  black  passage, 
scratched  and  smarting,  dishevelled  and  short 
of  breath,  but  securely  in  the  delightful  close. 

They  could  scarcely  see  it  for  their  tears, 
or  frame  thought  for  their  high-beating 
hearts,  but  they  apprehended  with  the  first 
breathing  of  its  enchanted  atmosphere,  beau- 
ties and  amenities  beyond  every  dream.  The 
new  Eve,  once  owning  herself  vanquished — 
not  by  Adam,  dear,  no !  but  herself,  one 
Nelly  by  another,  Roman  by  Roman  vali- 
265 


April's  Sowing 

antly  vanquished — returned  his  kisses  with  a 
simplicity  that  would  have  marked  with  ele- 
gance the  accomplishment  of  any  function. 
Little  was  dignity  missed  !  truly,  little  more 
than  the  sacred  vesture  of  Venus,  who 
emerged  from  it,  surely  we  know,  more 
touchingly  beautiful,  and  not  less  dignified. 

She  gloried  to  be  generous,  Nelly,  this 
once;  she  let  her  head  stay  where  it  pleased 
him  it  should  be ;  she  let  pour  into  her  ear 
what  he  would,  herself  not  repressing  the 
half-fledged  pretty  things  that  fluttered  to  her 
lips  ;  she  seemed  ambitious  almost  to  match 
him  in  murmured  eloquence,  cap  his  protes- 
tations, supply  creditable  responses  to  his 
ecstatical  psalming.  There  was  the  exalted 
peace  of  an  exact  mutualness  between  them 
for  a  little  while. 

It  could  not  last,  of  course.  Having 
touched  the  bottom  depths  of  emotion,  where 
all  is  solemn  as  questions  of  life  and  death, 
they  began  mounting  where  capricious  ripples 
dance  in  sunshine.  Their  hearts,  before 
266 


April's  Sowing 

overburdened,  with  the  melting  away  of  the 
crushing  weight,  grew  crazily  light.  Nelly 
laughed  suddenly,  inconsequently,  at  some- 
thing dreadfully  serious  he  said.  He  laughed 
back  instantly,  as  he  would  have  sent  a  ball ; 
and  they  laughed  on  and  on,  in  alternation 
and  in  unison,  youthfully,  into  each  other's 
faces. 

But  neither  could  this  stage  endure,  in  a 
world  that  perpetually  moves.  The  soft 
laisser-aller  of  their  unreasoning  mirth,  simple 
expression  of  joy  in  proximity,  was  presently 
diminished  too.  The  one  first  to  laugh  began 
sobering,  loosing  herself,  answering  ab- 
stractedly, not  with  the  harsh  effect  quite  of 
taking  herself  back,  but  of  being  insidiously 
subtracted  by  a  thought  that  cut  off  his  access. 
The  zone  of  perfect  weather  had  been  passed. 

John-Hector  felt,  with  a  small  growing 
dread,  the  suggestion,  in  the  touch  of  chill 
upon  the  paradisal  blossoms,  of  a  bad  half- 
hour  at  hand  perhaps  for  him.  One  thing, 
however,  was  become  henceforward  forever 
267 


April's  Sowing 

impossible,  as  he  believed :  that  he  again 
should  lose  her  ;  there  was  no  ordeal  in  view 
of  this  for  which  he  could  not  manfully  have 
braced  himself. 

He  had  not  stopped  talking  because  she 
only  half  listened. 

41  Lord !  "  he  now  exclaimed,  inviting  the 
inevitable;  "what  infernal  rubbish  it  all 
seems  that  passed  through  my  head  a  few 
minutes  ago,  when  I  was  standing  out  there 
looking  up  at  five  hundred  windows  one  of 
which  might  be  yours  !  I  thought  there  was 
nothing  left  me  but  to  curse  God  and  die.  I 
thought  I  was  too  much  ashamed  ever  to 
venture  to  approach  you  again.  I  thought 


44 Don't!"  said  Nelly,  sitting  stiffly  up. 
He  looked  at  her  in  interrogative  suspense : 
she  let  the  hand  she  had  raised  to  stop  him 
drop  on  his  knee,  and  beat  time  on  it  with 
her  palm  to  an  inaudible  tune,  her  eyes  fixed 
upon  her  rings,  as  if  nothing  interested  her 
so  much.  4t  Don't  tell  me  anything." 
268 


April's  Sowing 

And  as  a  little  uneasily  he  watched  her 
mouth,  to  gather  what  more  from  that  rosy 
puzzle,  something  subdued  him  immensely 
in  the  inhabitual  seriousness  uncurling  its 
Cytherean  line.  It  first  came  home  to  him 
now  that  here  was  another  Nelly  from  his 
wayward  charmer  of  old.  He  seized  the  dif- 
ference worked  by  the  time  elapsed  since 
Cloverfield.  An  indescribable  feeling  laid 
hold  on  the  beats  of  his  heart,  one  element 
in  which  was  abasement,  but  infinitely  sweet. 

"You  see,"  she  said,  staring  ahead  with 
that  unknown  sincerity  and  profoundness  of 
expression,  "  you  see —  "  and  finding  it  ap- 
parently difficult  to  speak,  ruffled  her  brow  in 
the  way  he  knew  so  well,  and  while  she  cast 
about  for  words  beat  time  as  before  to  the 
inaudible  music — "  you  see  that  since  I  have 
found  that  I  am  going  to  forgive  you  what- 
ever it  may  be  you  have  done,  it  would  be  a 
useless  humiliation  to  us  both  that  you  should 
tell  me  what  it  is.  Don't  tell  me  anything ! 
I  don't  want  to  know  !  " 
269 


April's  Sowing 

She  glanced  up  quickly  after  a  moment  to 
interpret  his  silence,  and  instantly  lowered 
her  eyes  in  a  sort  of  modesty. 

"  You  know,  dear,"  she  said  in  a  monoto- 
nous, hesitating  tone,  with  the  same  effect  of 
finding  it  difficult  to  hit  upon  the  word  she 
wanted,  and  no  less  so  to  propel  her  voice, 
"  you  haven't  any  reason  to  feel  grateful  to 
me  for  it  at  all.  It's  not  magnanimity,  it's 
common  or  garden  fairness.  I  have  had  so 
much  time  to  think — I  have  turned  every- 
thing about  in  every  conceivable  light.  I  can 
see  now  how  hard  on  you  it  was  that  I 
should  do — as  I  did.  Though  I  can't  see, 
either,  how  I  could  have  done  differently. 
How  is  a  person  to  be  sure  she  is  going  to 
care  enough,  while  she  really  doesn't — at  all 
events,  doesn't  know  that  she  does?  It 
seemed  doing  as  much  already  for  us  both  as 
I  could,  that  I  should  give  us  the  chance. 
The  fault  seems  to  me  to  lie  in  the  whole 
nature  of  things  itself;  or  is  it  our  Ameri- 
can ways  ?  But  all  this,  since  it  hasn't 
270 


April's  Sowing 

worked  to  our  positive  destruction,  let  us  dis- 
creetly spare  to  judge.  And  we  will  rub  out 
without  reading,  won't  we,  all  it  might  hurt 
us  to  remember.  I  am  the  one,  the  one  of 
all ;  it  is  all  I  am  going  to  ask.  It  was  very 
weak,  but  certainly,  when  I  saw  you  again, 
the  moment  I  saw  you,  dear,  I  felt  that  if 
you  were  linked  with  one  virtue  and  a 
thousand  crimes,  and  that  one  virtue  to  care 
about  little  me,  I  should  freely  remit  the 
crimes.  You  shall  have  the  benefit  now  of 
all  I  felt  when  it  seemed  just  like  the  per- 
versity of  things  that  all  should  go  endlessly 
wrong,  and  we  never,  never  be  together 
again.  Yes,  yes,  listen  well !  " — she  flashed 
at  him  a  warm  little  smile,  and  turned  on 
him  for  a  second  a  more  familiar  facet  of  his 
lady — "  for  it  is  probable  you  will  never  hear 
me  talk  like  this  again.  It  is  very  possible,  I 
warn  you,  I  may  see  fit  hereafter  to  put  an 
antic  disposition  on.  Whatever  I  put  on, 
dear,  nothing  will  ever  matter  so  much  to  me 
as  that  you  should — oh,  I  don't  know  how 
471 


April's  Sowing 

to  put  it ! — as  that  you  should  care  !  Noth- 
ing, dear,  nothing,  nothing,  nothing  !  "  With 
each  repetition,  her  voice  came  more  earnest, 
the  last  plaintive  with  emphasis ;  and  worth 
more  than  all  the  rosy  things  said  in  the 
overbubbling  emotion  before,  were  to  him 
the  labored  words  that  ratified  them ;  "  and 
you  did  use  to  care.  Then  if  you  stopped 
for  a  while,  it  can't  be  helped.  Enough  that 
it  all  came  back  the  moment  you  saw  me, 
and  now  will  stay  the  rest  of  life — for  it  will, 
won't  it  ?  And  if  you  1-love  me,  it  doesn't 
matter  what  you  have  done,  you  will  here- 
after do  what  is  right.  Nothing  will  ever 
matter  to  me  by  the  side  of  your  caring. 
Whatever  comes,  remember  what  I  say  now 
as  the  truest  thing  I  ever  said.  And  remem- 
ber that  it  will  be  true  always.  I  know  it. 
That  is  all." 

Because  he  did  not  speak,  after  a  moment 
she  looked  at  him,  and  their  meeting  eyes  might 
read.  Each  at  once  looked  away  from  the 
other,  as  if  it  had  been  physically  difficult  to 


April's  Sowing 

support  the  bare,  earnest  light  of  the  soul 
when  it  is  so  near  the  surface. 

He  stammered  something,  awkwardly, 
scarcely  above  breath. 

They  shared  a  characteristic  shrinking  from 
voicing  their  inmost  emotions  •,  they  were  in 
intimate  understanding  of  each  other  in  saying 
no  more. 

An  inexpressible  contentment  softly  took 
possession  of  her  in  the  sense  of  being  his, 
of  having  it  her  task  to  make  him  transcend- 
ingly  happy.  Feeling  so  rich,  she  wondered 
she  had  not  known  before  that  she  was  a 
pauper.  To  be  loved,  she  had  found  passing 
pleasant ;  to  love,  torturing  ;  to  love  and  to 
be  loved  seemed  the  gift  which  receiving  one 
should  ask  no  more.  Oh,  marvelous,  that  they 
two,  young  beings  like  thousands  of  others, 
who  had  done  nothing  to  deserve  it,  should 
have  this  overwhelming  happiness  come  to 
them,  more  than  being  elected  king  and 
queen  over  all  the  nations.  A  great  wave 
lifted  Nelly's  heart  up,  up,  in  gratitude ;  not 


Sowing 

at  this  moment  for  herself  alone  ;  for  all  those 
others,  too,  of  whom  she  thought  in  this  way 
for  the  first  time,  great  and  little  of  the  earth 
who  inherited  with  her  the  divine  possibility 
of  this  joy. 

"  There  is  one  thing  I  should  like  to  tell 
you,"  said  John-Hector,  in  conclusion  to  long 
study  of  her  tranquilly  luminous  meditative 
face,  "  because  I  couldn't  bear  to  play  a  part 
about  it,  dear,  pretending  to  be  surprised  at 
what  I  know  already." 

"  As  you  please,"  said  Nelly,  in  spite  of 
herself  a  little  dryly. 

"  Yesterday,  dearest,  when  you  were  at 
Miss  Wildermuth's  studio — I  was  there 
too." 

Nelly  instantly  released  herself.  The  red 
flowed  stormily  over  all  that  was  visible  of 
her. 

"  You  will  think  no  evil,  dear,"  said  John 
Hector  softly.  "  It  is  because  I  know  you 
will  not  misunderstand  that  I  want  to  tell 
you." 


April's  Sowing 

Nelly  felt  at  once  that  her  magnanimity 
before  had  really  been  none,  that  it  would  in 
reality  be  harder  to  forgive  a  known  offense 
than  a  mass  of  undetailed  offending.  Her 
impulse  was  to  stop  him.  But  the  harm  was 
already  done,  she  knew  that  too ;  she  could 
have  no  peace  now  but  from  hearing  the  rest. 

"Well?"   she  said. 

"  No,  darling,  no !  Not  in  that  voice, 
Nelly  !  I  don't  want  to  paint  myself  white, 
but  you  won't,  because  you  are  forgiving  me 
unconfessed,  imagine  more  to  forgive  than 
really  there  is,  will  you,  dear?  I  don't  see 
now,  of  course,  how  I  could  let  myself  go  to 
pieces  as  I  did.  Give  its  share,  won't  you, 
to  a  raging  jealousy — not  so  unnatural,  if  you 
think  of  it — working  the  devil  in  me.  But 
that  is  all  past !  I  won't  speak  of  it  again. 
And,  mind,  I  am  not  defending  myself  in  the 
face  of  your  blessed  generosity.  But  what  I 
was  trying  to  tell  you :  it  is  true,  as  you  sup- 
posed, that  I  am  scarcely  at  liberty  to  walk 
about  openly,  and  so — " 
275 


April's  Sowing 

"  How  then  are  you — " 

"  Oh,  this  is  different,  entirely.  Everything 
was  changed  when  I  knew  you  were  here.  I 
wouldn't  have  stayed  in  for  them  then. — 
Yes,  I  was  at  the  studio — Miss  Wildermuth 
very  kindly  allowed  me  to  come.  She  has 
been  such  a  good  friend  to  me,  Nelly — she  is 
such  a  generous  nature.  The  places  were 
extremely  limited  where  I  could  go.  It  was 
becoming  such  a  bore,  keeping  out  of  sight. 
And  I  was  hard  up  ;  I  couldn't  leave  town. 
The  studio  was  such  a  resource  of  a  forenoon; 
they  would  hardly  look  for  me  there.  When 
your  knock  came,  the  simplest  way  of  meeting 
the  contre-temps — it  seemed  one,  dear  ! — was 
that  I  should  step  into  a  little  side-room,  and 
wait  till  the  visitor  had  gone.  I  thought  you 
stayed  rather  long — try  to  imagine  it,  miss  ! 
— I  heard  murmuring  voices,  but  I  was  read- 
ing, I  took  no  account  of  them.  By  and  by 
I  finished  my  book,  and  began  wishing  you 
would  go.  Think  of  it,  darling,  I  wished  you 
would  go !  Then  you  must  have  come 
276 


April's  Sowing 

rather  near  my  door — just  beside  the  door 
that  lets  you  out — and  certainly  you  raised 
your  voice,  and  I  recognized  it." 

"  That  was  it,  then  !  That  was  why  she 
kept  urging  me  to  come  in  again  and  sit 
down !  That  was  what  made  her  turn 
white  as  a  table-cloth  !  " 

"  Oh,  Nelly,  when  I  heard  your  voice, 
your  dear  little  American  voice,  how  can 
I  describe  what  happened  inside  of  me  ? — 
Well !  —  I  didn't  recollect  myself  enough 
not  to  listen;  in  fact,  I  listened  with  all 
my  soul,  and  couldn't  help  hearing  what  you 
said. — Darling,  don't  look  like  that !  "  He 
slipped  from  the  sofa,  and  knelt,  hiding  his 
face  in  her  lap.  "  Don't,  don't  be  sorry  you 
said  it,  or  that  I  heard — I  shall  bless  you  for 
it  all  my  life  ! — But  though  it  was  heavenly, 
it  made  me  feel  like  the  damned." 

There  was  a  pause. 

«  Well  ?  "  said  Nelly  again. 

"  You  know,  dear.  I  went  and  stood  out 
there." 

*77 


April's  Sowing 

Nelly  looked  down  at  his  head — the  gilt 
high-lights  of  boyish  effect  were  gone,  it  was 
not  a  football  head  any  more — bent  over  her 
hands,  which  she  had  made  limp  and  not 
worth  holding.  She  seemed  to  be  looking  at 
him  from  a  great  distance.  She  wondered, 
ironically,  whether  he  thought  what  he  had 
said  ought  to  be  enough  to  satisfy  any 
woman. 

But  as  she  looked,  a  swarm  of  confused 
perceptions  came  to  life  in  her.  What  could 
he  have  said,  in  any  case  ?  Suppose  this, 
suppose  that,  what  could  he  have  said  ? 
Suppose  the  very  best,  as  it  must  be  held  by 
her:  that  the  blame  of  all  could  be  justly 
heaped  upon  Juliane,  cherishing  a  caprice,  as 
it  would  be  termed  in  a  French  book,  for  a 
man  ten  years  her  junior,  would  she  have 
been  able  to  tolerate  it  in  him  that  he  should 
so  much  as  hint  it?  If  pressed,  he  might, 
being  a  decent  fellow,  feel  compelled  to  lie. 

And  finally,  at  bottom,  was  she  honestly, 
undividedly  sorry  he  should  have  overheard  ? 


April's  Sowing 

She  gave  him  a  smart  little  dub  on  the 
shoulder  that  conveyed  the  idea  of  absolution, 
and  commanded,  "  Get  up,  John!  " 

He  rose,  and  stood,  looking  his  biggest  and 
straightest.  He  beamed. 

She  got  up,  too,  with  a  little  bounce  that 
dismissed  thought,  and  went  to  the  mirror  to 
settle  her  loosened  locks. 

He  followed.  «  You  beautiful  Nelly ! "  he 
greeted  her  reflection,  "  if  I  don't  believe  you 
have  grown  beautifuller  than  ever,  which  was 
impossible !  " 

She  tilted  her  head  like  a  sparrow  drinking, 
in  a  shallow  pretence  of  criticizing  herself. 
She  caught  sight  of  his  towering  happiness, 
and,  it  must  he  owned,  even  in  such  a  mo- 
ment was  chafed,  as  by  a  crumpled  rose-leaf, 
by  the  sense  that  the  chains  against  which  she 
had  revolted  were  laid  on  her  at  last.  But  one 
could  not  have  everything !  Liberty  and 
John-Hector !  If  one  wishes  to  keep  a  slave, 
it  is  certain  one  must  be  something  of  a  slave 
oneself  to  the  necessity  of  looking  after  him. 


April's  Sowing 

No,  one  cannot  have  everything.  There 
was  that  Bluebeard's  cabinet  in  his  past,  too. 
She  pulled  up  her  thought  very  short,  and 
turned  from  his  eyes  in  the  mirror ;  she  was 
determined  with  regard  to  that  never  to  fall 
below  the  level  she  had  set  herself;  she 
would  not  be  woman  in  that;  he  should 
not  have  to  suffer  for  what  she  had  to-day 
remitted. 

She  heard  now  of  his  studies  and  experi- 
ences, and  told  him  something  of  hers.  She 
was  impressed  with  the  certainty  that  he  was 
by  way  of  becoming  the  most  brilliant  scien- 
tist of  the  age. 

He  could  not  know  it,  because  it  did  not 
please  his  lady  to  explain,  but  he  came  very 
near  making  himself  disliked  when  he  laughed 
inextinguishable  laughter  at  the  idea  of  his 
head,  for  purposes  of  study,  tied  up  in  a  wet 
towel. 

Murrie  arrived.  There  was  a  time  of 
awkwardness,  because  of  a  celebrated  special- 
ist she  had  brought,  who  must  be  dismissed 
280 


April's  Sowing 

without  offence,  or  yet  so  much  as  a  glimpse 
of  his  patient. 

"  Now  you  must  go,"  said  Nelly  to  John- 
Hector,  when  Murrie  had  left  the  room. 

"  Very  well,  darling.  It  is  just  possible  I 
may  not  see  you  again  for  some  time." 

"  Because ?  " 

"  I  sha'n't  lie  low  any  longer.  I  am  going 
about  my  business  without  regard  to  other 
things.  If  they  particularly  want  me,  they 
can  have  me,  and  be  done  with  it.  It  won't 
be  long,  at  worst.  Then  I  can  begin  anew." 

"  You  are  going  to  remain  at — the  same 
address  ?  "  she  asked,  without  looking  at  him. 

"  You  wouldn't  want  me  not  to  ?  "  came 
from  him,  after  a  time,  almost  inaudibly. 

In  the  hesitation  following,  she  turned  a 
little  paler,  as  if  with  fatigue  at  the  conflicts 
involved  in  mere  living. 

"  No — you  are  right,  I  shouldn't,"  she 
said  gallantly  at  last.  "  But  this  is  good-by, 
John,  for  I  shall  not  remain  here  to  be  harried 
with  uncertainties.  There's  Ethel,  besides, 


April's  Sowing 

who  said — who  would  always  believe — No, 
I  am  going  back  to  Dresden,  to  Frau  Ottilie." 

"  Oh,  Nelly,  not  so  soon  !  " 

"I  will  come  again,  perhaps,  if  you  are 
good.  I  am  going  home  directly,  you  know. 
I  am  starving  to  see  them.  But  I  will  come 
again  after  that.  Go  quickly — I  hear  her." 

"  But  you  will  write  me,  Nelly  ? " 

"We  shall  see." 

"No,  we  sha'n't,  dearest.  My  dearest 
dearest,  we  sha'n't !  Every  day  !  Promise 
you  will  write  me  every  day.  Every  day, 
Nelly  !  Now  mind  !  I  won't  stir  until  you 
have  solemnly  sworn." 

"  The  alternative  being  such  ! — There, 
dear,  go  at  once." 

She  turned  from  the  door  through  which 
he  had  passed,  to  face  Murrie,  who  was  en- 
tering by  another. 

"  She  went  to  the  undertaker's  to  buy  him  a  coffin, 
And    when    she     came    back,    the     poor     dog    was 
laughing! " 

said    Murrie,  whose   eyebrows,  taken    up   to 


April's  Sowing 

the  verge  of  her  hair,  were  a  sufficiently 
plain  demand  for  an  explanation. 

Nelly  tranquilly  took  a  chair,  and  with  a 
serenity  of  the  same  family  with  that  before, 
in  another  chair,  at  the  opening  of  this  his- 
tory, leaned  back  in  it  to  deal  with  her  friend. 

11  You  darling,  kind,  old  mystified  thing," 
she  said,  gazing  at  Murrie  with  half-closed 
eyelids,  between  which  beamed  through  a 
wicked  smile,  a  satisfying  affection;  you  can 
think  what  you  please.  I  am  not  going  to 
tell  you  anything  at  all." 

THE    END 


A     000118722     8 


